Pink & Dark Blue: Paint Sculptures

Back to the small paint sculptures.  For this shoot I set myself a goal.  Create cone shapes and document the frequencies and volume.  I was in the mood for some high contrast photos so chose to use pink and dark blue paints.

I started off with 60hz and full volume on my Macbook and -22db on the amp (although this has no proper relation to the actual decibel level and only relates to this specific amp).  These are some of the photos I took.  I changed the delay and the location and amount of paint, but kept the frequency and volume the same.

I really like how some of these came out.  Next time I am going to document the delay as well because over the course of a sculpture the shape can change from a solid cone to individual stands of paint.

XXL Paint Sculptures Take 2

Back down to the shed for the second try of the XXL paint sculptures.  I got an old pair of black shorts, ripped them up and used them as a backdrop to get almost pure black with no detail.

First photo, I think I turned the light on too quickly because there is a double exposure at the bottom and the second light had to have come at the end because the paint is a lot more spread out and it wasn't a miss fire of the flashes because the colour temp is too warm.  I like how you can trace the path of the paint sculpture to fall and create that second exposure.

This was the first photo I took as I was changing the frequency, volume and delay.  The volume was too low so didn't have an impact on the main body of paint.  The paint that shot into the air was also probably thinner.  I really like how it turned out!

The base was covered in red paint.

Camera Axe Broke

Ahhh just as I started to take photos the Camera Axe went a little haywire!  It ended up looking like this with parts of words missing and the active button wasn't working and the other controls were only functional some of the time.  I turned it on and off a few times and reset it, but it always ended up with a quick screen spasm and then a screen similar to this.  I first tried new batteries, but that wasn't the issue.

I removed it from its cover and connected it to the computer to reload the software to the Arduino.  Spent a good 2 hours trying to do this with no success.  In this time I had been onto the Camera Axe forums to see if anyone else had had any similar problems.  The only thing that seemed like it could have been related was a screen problem that was diagnosable through the voltages of the pins to the screen.

I measured the voltages but everything appeared to be normal!  So I put the Camera Axe back into its box and left it for the day.  This morning I had another look at it, but it was the same.  I came home from school with a few more ideas about what to search and other possible problems, but when I turned it on it was miraculously fixed!  The first thing I did was upload the new release of the Camera Axe 4 software (4.0 - 4.2).  I thankfully haven't had any problems since.

Gap In The Wall

I was a little concerned with the gap above where I did the paint sculptures and didn't want any paint to shoot through so I decided to beef up the protection a little bit.

I found a large old refrigerator box in a dumpster out the back of Harvey Norman which I brought home, cut to shape and then taped and stapled to the beam filling the gap perfectly.

Dead Amp

I got a little carried away the other night when taking some photos and continuously added more and more coloured cornflour and water until the speaker was overflowing.  The cornflower flowed all the way into the speaker box and onto the electronics of the amplifier causing it to stop working.

So I decided to fix it!







The first challenge was to get into the box, easier said then done in the end because the box was glued and stapled together very solidly and I didn't have a saw hand to just chop it in half and reveal its contains.  I ended up being able to leaver the main electrical board of the amp out which had all the external plugs and dials attached too as well.  The only thing left in the box now was the power supply which located in the bottom far corner of the box and impossible to reach.  There were two screws on the bottom of the box holding the power supply (voltage converter thing) in.  I couldn't simply unscrew those because they went through to a washer and nut which just spun on them selves and wouldn't come undone.  I couldn't manage to hold them still with anything either so I grabbed the drill out and drilled through the screw until they popped right out.

Next challenge was to get the power converter out of the tiny gap in the box.  The gap was too small so I drilled and cut a way at the sides until it would slide out.

















Unscrewing all the screws whilst holding the bolts with a pair of pliers got me through the cage of the board and I was able to finally see the mess.

The board was covered in a non-conductive glue that was sticking everything together and hindering me from scratching away at the corn flour so I first peeled all the glue away.










There were quite a few patches that looked like this that had a thin dried layer of corn flour.

I scratched away as much corn flour as I could.

Testing the speaker revealed that it now worked intermittently!













I got the electrical tape out and covered all the wires and areas that could electrocute me, then got a box and put the amp and power converter in there.

It looked pretty good!

When I had it all finally hooked up I found that it was even less consistant with when it would work then before.  Slightly annoying, but still usable.

After using it for a while it completely stopped playing anything I sent through too it and instead whenever turned on would go completely ballistic!  It would do its max amplitude and a rat of around 20hz!  This actually worked out great.  Instead of generating tones I just turn it on and it goes crazy at true 100% amplitude and approximately 20hz which makes some huge sculptures.

Generating Frequencies

I needed a more organised and easy way to play tones, frequencies, harmonics or whatever else I am going to use.

I found a program called Signal Scope Pro that enabled me to generate single or multiple frequencies at a time and record those straight to an .aif file which could then go into GarageBand.

Signal Scope Pro has many other features that could come in use such as a basic sound level metre and octave band analyser which I can use to monitor the decibel level of each individual frequency of live sounds.

 Recording and saving short 0.5 second snippets of frequencies over a large range to test.  I recorded from 40-200 at an interval of 10hz because I am sure that this will be the range that produces the best results.

I imported all the frequencies into GarageBand where I can easily isolate an individual track with a frequency on it to play.

I zoomed in on the edit pannel all the way so I could view the wave form and see how the frequencies differ from each other.

The first photo shows 40 hertz.  The wave form is very spread out as it only has 40 cycles of the up and down motion at a 100% amplitude in GarageBand per second.

150hz to the left has 150 cycles per second (CPS) and this reflects in the display showing a wave form that is very tight and has a quick up and down motion.