Adam Jansch : Travelling

Travelling (2010)

7'26; 5.1 video piece with live broadcast radio

Travelling still

Travelling is a 5.1 video piece which continues a fixed vs. indeterminate materials paradigm utilised in Synth Radio and The Chaos Engine – in common is the use of live radio as indeterminate material, but this time the fixed material is comprised of the video element with its originally captured diegetic sound.

The video shows a short in-vehicle road journey and consists of a single shot, framing both the driver and the vehicle’s stereo sound system. In-film gestures of the driver pressing buttons on the stereo are synchronised to manipulate parameters of the live radio stream at run-time.

Travelling electronics

This synchronisation is achieved through a MIDI connection between the film, playing back from Nuendo, and a custom-built MIDI radio. This radio is built from a SparkFun Electronics AR1010 radio receiver breakout board and a DFRduino nano, and uses the NewSoftSerial library for MIDI communications and Jansch’s own AR1010 comms library.

Travelling was premiered at the Holmfirth Film Festival 2010, at the Holmfirth Picturedrome. More on the use of radio in Travelling can be found in Jansch’s paper ‘The voice and the vehicle’, and a demo of Travelling in action can be seen below.

Travelling - demo from Adam Jansch on Vimeo.