Last semester I made this crazy web app for my final electroacoustic techniques course. The core idea is audience participation through interactive web design. Audience members that navigate to the webpage (hosted on my laptop) are greeted with an avatar that they can name, move around, and click on. All of their actions are recorded and sent back to the php server. Those actions are then sent to the other clients as updates.
Clicking on your avatar not only plays a sound on your laptop, but also plays a sound on the laptops of whomever is nearby you in the virtual space. Additionally, the click registers with the SuperCollider server running on my laptop, which responds by playing audio through the house speakers. The project includes:
- A SuperCollider Program that procedurally generates melodies based on audience input and on wii audio samples transposed along the pentatonic scale.
- A PHP Server that both hosts the website and keeps track each audience member's actions in virtual space
- A simple HTML/CSS webpage
- A Javascript interface that allows avatar 'mii's to be clicked, dragged, and updated inside a virtual playing field. Musical note graphics give user feedback when each of their respect laptops are playing sound. Implemented using JQuery.
- JSON packets sent to each client notifying them of other virtual audience members' actions
- A Flash player that plays the audio, triggered by Javascript events.
