Pure Data

I have been working through the "pure data is not max/msp" meme these past few weeks. As part of my Sound for Interaction course we are connecting with the Beat Generation theme of the semester and doing a Burroughs cut-up method on recordings of Burroughs talking about Burroughs. The sound installation will be comprised of about 450 files (created by the class) that will freely remix themselves, creating new Burroughs themes. The process continues though the author is dead. Neat, huh?

I lectured a class in game audio the other day. I mentioned that in preparing for my class I had come across an article stating that sound in gaming (as well as in most pop music) is louder and louder. The result being that there is no nuance. In the 'aracade' days, machines had to compete with each other as they were all crammed together in one room. The machine with the loudest sounds usually received the most attention, and thus the most coinage.

Last week I walked into the game lab and saw a student watching a movie, surfing the net, and playing a game . . . all at the same time. I asked him how he could do all those things at once. He told me he was multi-tasking . . . hmmmm. So, now games and commercials and radio stations and web sites must be louder . . . simply to blow all that other concurrently running media out of the attention zone.

In class, one of the visiting students offered an explanation. He says that the world is already too loud and that the only way for young people to escape these days is to find something even louder. That's right, it must all get louder . . . and it will.

Jason