Ableton
TouchDesigner
MIDI Twister
TouchDesigner
MIDI Twister
Alter Ego is an interactive performance made possible by Touch Designer and Ableton Live, controlled by MIDI twisters.
It presents the audience with an alternative storyline between modern and original. Inspired by the traditional Chinese legend "Journey to the West," it is a story about an unbelievably mysterious and dramatic journey to retrieve the ultimate truth that would save humanity. This is such a well-known story that it has been retold millions of times through all different media, including TV, opera, music, games, and much more.
What we are trying to do here is to forge a parallel world between the past and modern, and deliver the experience between the two worlds through music.
Sound
The music is a remix of the original theme song of "Journey to the West," written by in 1986, and has become a major memory of a generation because of its unique texture and composition. The purpose is to pull away from the old memory and instant emotional connection, and create something new. By increasing the BPM speed and adding a more dominant drum beat and strings, we give it a modern texture. We also add a few sound effects for smoother transitions and to better accompany the visual.
Visual
The visual is mainly composed by Touch Designer and Processing. Processing processed a few video clips of "Journey to the West," old and new ones, analyzed them with AI to cut them into separate clips of 2-5 seconds of individual scenes. Then, such a database is loaded into Touch Designer to rearrange and recompose. The change of the scenes is based on the beat of the sound.
Interactive
The interactivity of the performance is mainly controlled by a MIDI twister, altering the volume and pitch of the tracks so that some elements can be more prominent at some point, and the audience is navigated to jump between two storylines. When drums and strings are more prominent, the audience is invited to focus more on the modern twist, while traditional instruments are dominating, the audience is implied to focus on the traditional part of the story.
It presents the audience with an alternative storyline between modern and original. Inspired by the traditional Chinese legend "Journey to the West," it is a story about an unbelievably mysterious and dramatic journey to retrieve the ultimate truth that would save humanity. This is such a well-known story that it has been retold millions of times through all different media, including TV, opera, music, games, and much more.
What we are trying to do here is to forge a parallel world between the past and modern, and deliver the experience between the two worlds through music.
Sound
The music is a remix of the original theme song of "Journey to the West," written by in 1986, and has become a major memory of a generation because of its unique texture and composition. The purpose is to pull away from the old memory and instant emotional connection, and create something new. By increasing the BPM speed and adding a more dominant drum beat and strings, we give it a modern texture. We also add a few sound effects for smoother transitions and to better accompany the visual.
Visual
The visual is mainly composed by Touch Designer and Processing. Processing processed a few video clips of "Journey to the West," old and new ones, analyzed them with AI to cut them into separate clips of 2-5 seconds of individual scenes. Then, such a database is loaded into Touch Designer to rearrange and recompose. The change of the scenes is based on the beat of the sound.
Interactive
The interactivity of the performance is mainly controlled by a MIDI twister, altering the volume and pitch of the tracks so that some elements can be more prominent at some point, and the audience is navigated to jump between two storylines. When drums and strings are more prominent, the audience is invited to focus more on the modern twist, while traditional instruments are dominating, the audience is implied to focus on the traditional part of the story.