Pop Culture

Audio

I based my representation on the song Pop Culture by Madeon, which is shown below. The song was made using a Launchpad, which stores sounds and replays them when you press a certain button. Madeon uses sounds from many different popular songs to make something new. I chose this song because it is one of my favorite songs, and when trying to think of physical representations of music this video was one of the first to come to mind.

Madeon - Pop Culture (live mashup)

Madeon - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lTx3G6h2xyA

Product

The final product is a grid of red and blue cups resembling a smiley face. I arranged the red cups in a six by six grid, and placed blue cups on top of them to give it some vertical dimension as well. I arranged the blue cups in the shape of a smiling emoji. I finally put a pair of over-ear headphones on the top of the emoji to look like it's wearing them.

Approach

I wanted to make something related to how the song was made with a Launchpad and work from there, so I started with making a grid of cups I had in my room to resemble the Launchpad. I was then thinking about how to add more to it to maybe add a bit of a deeper level than just the obvious physical connection made in the video for the song. I initially added the blue cups in random order to look like the colors of the launchpad, but then I thought that arranging the blue cups in a smiling shape made more sense. This way it relates more to the title of the song, "Pop Culture," and it relates better to how the song was not randomly composed, but every button Madeon pressed was intentional in creating the music. I furthered it by adding the headphones on the top because the song was digitally created and remixed by a DJ. My reference for inspiration was linked above.

Reflection

I think I successfully translated the process and theme of Madeon's Pop Culture, but one thing I could do better is relate the physical representation with the sound itself. In some ways I touched on this since Pop Culture throws many pop songs together in unison to create a finished product that sounds good, and my piece puts many otherwise meaningless, individual cups together to form an image. This was more of an afterthought, and should have maybe been the primary focus to begin with, but I found the other aspects of the song to be an easier starting point. I think it would be hard to think of Pop Culture specifically when looking at my representation, but once you know what it is intended to represent I think it makes sense. I learned how difficult it is to translate something intangible into the physical domain.

2 comments · Latest by Tian Zhao

Great job incorporating the DJ style music to your physical art installation! It's really a good idea using red and blue cups to form a neat, matrix-like surface. I would interpret these cups as the buttons of the electronic remixer that can trigger different sounds and tones. I also like how you make a smiling face out of the blue cups, since I also perceive the original audio as joyful and encouraging.
I think maybe you can try to flashing light bulbs inside some of the cups, or add some colorful lasers to your work to make it a dynamic scene.

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Tangible Translation

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62-150 Intro to Media Synthesis and Analysis

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Physically represent the song Pop Culture by Madeon