John Woodward

Could you come up with a definition of "soundtoys"
play , emotion , stimulation

What is you project and your work about?
Its about collaboration between people , I'm interested in how technology can bring people together 'people to people' rather than 'human to computer' interaction . I was interested in the idea of users being able to change the state of another place in some physical way , the sound seemed like an obvious choice. Sound is a physical process and I wanted multiple users to manipluate objects in 'cspace' that inturn activates sounds on all users machines. I'm interested in the id of people working together in a virtual space to peform some kind of group action like composing a muscial narrative. In the near future I hope to extend and make this experiment more interactive rather than reactive and allow users to import there own sounds into the soundscape .

How long have you been working in this area?

Thias was my first experiment with this concept of multiuser soundscapes . I did start with the multiuser aspect of things and the n form there I started to think about how I could take the whole idea of multiuser a little bit further and how I could use the technology to change the state of the real world if only for the length of interaction with the piece .

Were you an artist/ musician first who got into using computers/the net or did
you respond to the net in an artistic way? I started as a designer and then moved into New media and now im moving into more collaborative media which includes collaborative soundscapes .

What/ who has influenced you in your work? (themes, other artists etc)
www.altzero.com

Are there any other artists covering the same field as you?
www.squidsoup.com

Do you see this work as art?
I dont consider myself as an art , but rather a creative , and all my work is a generated by a creative process .

With regard to 'soundtoys' especially, why do you think the audio visual metaphor is so key to the net?
We like to see what were interacting with we are audio / audio creatures , because sound is not a visible medium unless richocheting of water or other physical pheneomenon
.
We desire the visual in our interaction's along with the audible

What defines the aesthetics of new interactive music.?
I think in the past multimedia production has been neglectful of audio and what audio can bring to a piece of multimedia . Interactive music of play

How mportant is the visual aspect in the 'new' relationship of the audio visual.?

Its dependent on the work at hand really , I think some works could easily be devoid of any visual elements and rely totally on thecontent of the sounds , there have been a coule of interactive sound installations that I have seen that are completely sound based and conjour,up incredible visual images in the mind . Sounds can be very visual in the reproduction , so the decision to use visuals is really about if visuals will help the work or not ?

How novel do you feel generative music and interactivity is?

Generative music is a very interesting meduim . Audio in the early stages of multimedia was either neglected or used very naively . Today there are new media artists exploring the potentials of audio in the interactive rather than passive domain , Its about bringing the user into the piece rather than shutting them out , getting them involved. Its evident that early soundtoys explored the concepts of interactive sound essentially it wasnt interactive sound that they were exploring bu reactive soundtoys ( although reactive soundtoys can be interesting ) . Generative music is the natural next step in teh evolution of soundtoys (making truly interactive soundtoys ).

Would you describe yourself as a multimedia artist, a net.artist, programmer, or none of the above?
New media artist

What software do you use most and why?
Macromedia Director , because it offers so much freedom and potential for creating interesting and innovative new media forms

On a more personal level why do you make this work?
It was a response to idea of users being able to change the physical environment of remote spaces located globally through the use of sound .

Can you recommend any urls to soundtoys?
www.altzero.com
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