Interactive | Projects | Paul Rucker | Composer • Musician • Visual Artist

Four Score

A play on Abraham Lincoln’s Gettysburg address, and four graphic musical scores. The viewer is given an MP3 player and listens to corresponding compositions and arrangements. Each score measure 40 inches x 60 inches.

Happy Ending Machine

“Happy Ending Machine” enables viewers to rearrange the instrumentation by breaking laser beams. Each laser beam corresponds to a different instrument (saxophone, bass/piano, drums, and guitar), which starts and stops by hand movement. The participant is the Conductor with full control.

Wall of Pieces

“Wall of Pieces,” which was on display at Consolidated Works in Seattle , involves 88 images that correspond to 88 keys on a keyboard. Each key plays a composition I’ve composed over the past 25 years. Multiple compositions can be played at one time to create soundscapes of cacophony.

Eleven Conversations

Eleven Conversations is an interactive sound and video installation that allows the viewer to manipulate a video of eleven different cello performances by waving a hand over an infrared beam. The sensor responds to the proximity and speed of the hand. The different compositions mimic different types of conversations, discussions that involve conflict, nostalgia, sadness, and small talk. The use of a low-pass filter processing the audio in real-time creates the illusion that the performance is slowing down and speeding up as it is manipulated by the listener/viewer.

Catalyst

“Catalyst,” which was recently shown at the Jack Straw New Media Gallery in Seattle, WA employs a touch screen using xy technology (x being the horizontal coordinate and y being the vertical coordinate on the touch pad): where you touch the screen determines which aspects of the video/audio are altered.