Process

After we first came up with the idea of messing with rhythms, we thought of audio visualization. The project is then divided into two parts: performance and programming. For the performance, we want to do layers of rhythms performed by three group members that involve drumming. But then we thought about involving the audience, so we eventually decided to let our group members lead the audience to clap alongside with us.  

For the programming, we talked about using Javascript and some other programs, but eventually settled with Processing since it has a mature FFT analyzer for audio. However, making our desired visual design is hard since we need to do a lot of math in the programming to get the right sizes and colors of shapes. We changed from using lines to using circles, and from having one line of circles to having three lines. We also added rhythmic dots to the background. At first, we had the colors also respond to sound input, but the randomness of the FFT output didn't really work with that. Eventually, the change in color and in the background dots are proportional to time elapsed and go in loops since rhythms are about time and looping, while sizes change with the loudness of the sound input.