Projects SI 28/The-Calm-Machine

Projects SI 28/The-Calm-Machine

The Calm Machine is a quiet and cozy island in the buzzing and bustling of this event. Hidden away from the other stations, it provides privacy and a moment of peace. Come in, sit down, touch, listen and observe. We then invite you to go for a psychogeographic walk. Walking is a form of reading. Through the act of walking, you interpret and rewrite the city. You are a gear in the mechanics of the Calm Machine—by interacting, you make it come to life! Connect with your senses and surroundings, and perhaps generate a new sensation.

Idea

Both of us have been thinking about belonging, the meaning of home and ways to counteract anxiety in the context of living in a big city surrounded by many people. We have different approaches on how to deal with these feelings. In our machine, we are bringing them together, but in two different parts: the "inner", and the "outer". For the event, we wanted to make a cozy corner in the space of UBIK to rest and relax. Sibyl worked on an interactive light and sound installation, that invites the audience to be more aware of their senses and surroundings. Lea's walking algorithm printed on postcards then takes the visitors on a walk, to further connect with the immediate space around them. A narrative text guides them through the whole machine, trying to invoke a feeling of calmness and belonging as well as reflective thoughts on the experience of the whole event.

Introduction

Welcome to the Calm Machine. Please sit down, relax for a moment. You have moved through the hall and made it here. This a space to ground yourself—without rushing, without judging. Reflect on the things you have observed. What sensations did you experience on your way? Did something feel strangely familiar? Did you notice something that sparked inspiration in you? What did your hands want to touch? Listen to your body, your thoughts and your surroundings.

The Inner Machine Please take a 'key', open it and have a seat. You have entered the inner part of the machine, where you can touch, listen, and heighten your sensory perception. Feel the most tender and intimate part of the machine.

The Outer Machine You have been here for a while now. Did you gather some fresh energy? If you feel like it, we would like to take you on a walk and thereby make you write a story. Breathe in some fresh air and feel the Rotterdam autumn winds on your face. Grab a pen and one of the walking cards. Just follow the instructions to start your journey! When you are done, please come back here to scan your results.

Process

We collected ideas for the event on our own, and after sharing our thoughts in class meetings and discovering our common interests, we teamed up to work together. Sibyl was reading Walking as Research Practice (2022) and Lea was reading Walking and Mapping: Artists as Cartographers (Karen O’Rourke, 2013) at that time. We exchanged thoughts on these books as well as on our feelings regarding the city of Rotterdam and the upcoming event, where our projects would be displayed. Sibyl feels most safe at home and in enclosed spaces, while Lea uses walking as a method to calm down from crowded events. After talking with Marloes, we decided to split our machine into an "inner" and an "outer" part.

Here is a shorter, more concise version:

---

Sibyl: The Inner Part

Inspiration:

After moving to a new city, I spent months overwhelmed by the negative emotions of adapting to an unfamiliar environment. While creating this piece, I kept trying to think of something new, but I didn’t have the energy. As I reflected on how to feel more at ease, I realized that revisiting the familiar parts of my past gave me a sense of security. I had never noticed my connection to my hometown—often mixed with dislike—yet it still shaped who I am. Now that I’ve left, I feel like a machine missing some of its parts, searching for the pieces I haven’t yet recovered.

Explaination:

·Why sound?

Each object carries a personal meaning for me.

Sound becomes the way I translate these meanings outward — a language that allows my emotions to be heard rather than explained.

·Why lighting?

Lighting shapes the atmosphere.

It creates an immersive experience, like an emotional wave that softens the surroundings and mirrors my inner state.

Audio's Contents:

the explanations of each sound

I make a Teller for explanation these for audios.

Yarn—Self-Reflection

Soothing piano music + Car sounds + Sounds of Rotterdam

Steamer—Family

News broadcasts + Mom's voice + Food I ask Mom for

Plants—Life: Seeking Outside

Rustling leaves + Rain sounds + Wind sounds

Friends—Emotional Support

Phone ringtone + Friend's voice

The Process of Installation:

I wanted to invite the audience to enter my inner space through touch, listening, and immersion. By physically interacting with the objects and listening to the meanings behind them, everyone can experience the stories carried by each item.

This flowchart was drawn by Anna from Interaction Studio to help me understand the operational process of the entire installation.

TouchDesigner's flowchart

Touching:

I used a Touch Board to connect four objects with distinct textures and meanings: Yarn, Steamer, Plants, and an object representing "Friends" as a symbol of connection. When participants touch them, pre-recorded unique audio clips are triggered, each corresponding to the essence of the object or a related memory.

Lighting:

To make "sound visible," I used TouchDesigner to translate the Touch Board's trigger signals into real-time light variations. The triggered sounds synchronously control the flickering frequency and patterns of four desk lamps, creating a visual rhythm where 'light follows sound.'

Challenges:

During the process, the connection between the objects and the touch board was often unresponsive, creating many limitations that affected the audience’s experience. At the same time, the system struggled to run smoothly, possibly because of the computer’s specifications or the large number of connected components. As a result, TouchDesigner frequently froze and had to be restarted repeatedly in order to function properly.

Lea: The Outer Part

walking cards, displayed on a cosy desk

the set up to scan

Protocol

I went through several iterations of the walking protocol: It is based on Wilfried Hou Je Bek's walking algorithms. My first machine coming out of this idea is the Psychogeographic Walking Machine, which outputs a poem. It can be found in the Writing Machine Directory. I wrote several other walking protocols, for example based on vision, smell or hearing. I considered offering all these different options to the audience—then they could compare how they experience the city while focusing on different senses. In the end, I decided to make just one protocol. I am very curious how different people perceive the same (urban) space, and one protocol for all makes a comparison possible.

Then, I worked on different instructions for the walking itself, but quickly settled on five right turns—thereby walking out of the door and once around the block. This is the shortest possible path without going backwards, thus it takes little time and is accessible to many people. First, I tried to draw the diagrams with Graphvis, but I couldn't control them in detail and switched over to Inkscape.

a first draft for a protocol based on listening

a first draft for a protocol based on observing

Copying

To actually be able to see the results, I had to think of a way to safe them. I wanted people be able to take their outputs home, so I discarded the idea of a letterbox "void" to drop the cards into. In the end, I set up a scanner. Steve gave me a book scanner of his to use, but its software only runs on MacOs and Windows. Instead, I used a small flatbed document scanner from the XML. I set up a raspberry pie—that way, I didn't have to use my laptop during the event. The evening before, Michael helped me write a python script to scan on pressing enter, and a bash script to start the python script. Since I did not want to bring a display, I had to run it blindly on the day of the exhibition. I was very surprised to see it working on the first try!

#!/bin/bash
cd /home/xpub/walking
python3 scanning.py

import os

while True:
	input("press enter to scan")
	# first scan a page
	# scanning = "scanimage --resolution 300 -o walking.png"
	scanning = "scanimage --resolution 300 -o  walking-$(date +%H%M%S).png"
	print("scanning")
	os.system(scanning)
	# os.system("echo $(date +%H%M%S).png")

Writing

A big part of the process for me had been writing: I started with the narration to welcome the visitors into our machine. I felt it was necessary to provide a form of guidance, as we essentially were presenting two very different installations physically very close to each other. Our goal was to spread calmness and offer a moment for reflection to the audience, so this is what we tried to reflect in the narration.

For the output, I wrote a framework for a short story (not a poem as in the Psychogeographic Walking Machine), that I tested multiple times. It is hard to always make it fit semantically and grammatically. I talked to Thjis about good story writing and gentle narration. Barbara's note "how to write a story softly" really stuck with me. My aim was to fit all the different pieces of writing (the welcome note, the instructions and questions from the protocol, and the output story) into one cohesive experience.

* Can you spot an object that reminds you of home?
* Is there something curious to observe?
* Look at someone or something active to your left. What are they doing?
* What do you see when you look up?
* How did this walk make you feel?

Imagine this: [A] is drifting through the city… Roaming the streets, opening their eyes, then opening them again. Drafting stories in their mind. There are not many others around. A few people, high up on the rooftops, are [C]. [A] feels [E] by them, but not uncomfortably so. On the way, [A] spots 
[B] under hovering [D]. Is this still real? 

[F] is drifting through the city… Walking faster to get warm, to catch a green light, to get out of someones way. Walking slower to cool down, to look at something more closely, to get out of someones way. Drafting stories in their mind. Seeing [G] in the clouds—higher up than [I] . Watching the ants, [H] . They always seem to be so [J] . [F], too, is [J]. Finally, still on their feet, [F] catches [G] falling into their arms, growing larger by the second. Is this a message? 

[K] is drifting through the city… One street at a time, all the ways at once. Crawling and jumping, drafting stories in their mind. Thinking third thoughts about scarecrows and rats, [M]. At the crossroads, [L] is looking down from [N], watching over the city. [K] blinks twice—[O], as usual. Is this the  end?

Results

the final graph

the final framework for the story

example of an output from the day of the event

a second example

Reflection

Sibyl

First, the space was pretty dark, so it was hard for people to read the exhibition notes, and it was a bit risky in terms of safety. Also, because of the location, some visitors thought it was backstage and didn’t realize it was part of the exhibition. But interestingly, some people said that the surprise of discovering it as an exhibition space actually made them feel delighted.

Second, I think I didn’t manage my time very well while preparing the work. I was constantly anxious, knowing that the piece would end up showing a pretty unstable state. But one visitor told me that the way I kept repairing and restarting the machine made it feel like we were actually inside the machine. Coming into the space, we had to “restart” and adapt, and in that way, every visitor became part of the machine. That really put me at ease.

This is also one of the reasons I like making interactive work — because through interacting with the audience, I can constantly get new perspectives and feedback.

Lea

It was positively surprising how many people turned up to the event, and even more so that many did the protocol—despite the inclement weather and the gloom of a November afternoon. The feedback that I received was lovely: People generally enjoyed the walk and the questions on the cards seemed to be resonating with them. My intention was to make people reflect on their surroundings and think about things that otherwise would not cross their minds during a busy event, and this worked out nicely.One drawback: There were many visitors and the space for our machine was smaller than I had in mind from the first visit at UBIK. Therefore it was quite crowded and "The Calm Machine" was not very calm at all.

During Special Issue #28, I thought again and again about how to make writing machines meaningful. The output of several machines I worked on was fun, but often not more than that. In conversations with different people, I collected ideas around assigning meaning to an output text.

Talking to Steve, I realised that context is very important. Having a poem, a story, or even a non textual output relate to a person or a specific moment in time can be meaningful. It is also interesting to think about the act of performing the protocol as the most substantial part of a writing machine, and not expecting the output to go further than that. This feels especially relevant to me if the protocol is executed in a collective effort of a group. It also resonated with me in the context of The Calm Machine. I chose the act of walking as part of my protocol, because it means something to me, and I hoped that others would feel the same way. I carefully considered the questions asked, because I wanted to spark meaningful thoughts in my audience.

It also helps to play around with the character of an output text. Thijs gave valuable input on writing: use repetition, contradictions and purposeful vagueness. I was initially not satisfied with my story framework, because it felt very random. But by leaning into the randomness, I was surprised to find it more cohesive than before. Manetta was insistent about the intent of my work. What do I want to achieve? I found it interesting to have results from different people next to each other to compare, thereby getting a sneak peak into their perception of their surrounding. This, I would like to explore further, possibly in a workshop setting or group walks.