Creating a galvanic skin response sensor

#Creating a galvanic skin response sensor full
#Creating a galvanic skin response sensor series

This variation of Clocker was recorded on June 11, 1991, in the North Gallery of the Center for the Arts at Wesleyan University.

#Creating a galvanic skin response sensor full

On page 21, for example, I came across the following: вЂњThe thing IвЂ™d like most in the world.is to make clocks run backward.No, with thought, by concentrating until I force time to move back.вЂќ Later in the book Calvino describes вЂњ.the catoptric instruments of the seventeenth century, little theatres of various design where a figure is seen multiplied by the variations of angles between the mirrors.вЂќ He wants to reconstruct a вЂњpolydyptic theatre, in which about sixty little mirrors lining the inside of a large box transform a bough into a forest, a lead soldier into an army, a booklet into a library.вЂќ Perhaps Calvino wouldnвЂ™t have minded if I added to his list of lovely images: вЂњA clock into a room full of clocks.вЂќ Throughout the book I would come upon images and ideas which seemed remarkably close to those I used in this work. Later I added a bank of fixed delays which, as the splay out from the voltage controlled delay, create multiple reflections that almost convince the listener that the room is changing in size.Дuring this time I was reading Italo CalvinoвЂ™s If on a winterвЂ™s night a traveler. With this new equipment, the sounds of the delayed clock now matched those of the original, creating clear copies and with them a more convincing illusion of time expanding and contracting. He procured a unit for me and we performed a new version of Clocker at the LвЂ™oeil de Poisson gallery in Quebec City on March 17, 1988.

In 1987, Nicolas Collins, who had helped me record some study versions for Clocker several years earlier, called with information about a new digital delay system that he thought would suit my needs - a Digitech RDS 7.6 with a continuously variable voltage control input.

It received a few subsequent performances in the United States and Europe but because of the relatively low sound quality of the delay - it was an early prototype - I abandoned the work.

#Creating a galvanic skin response sensor series

Clocker was first performed at the Real and Imaginary Spaces series at The Kitchen in New York on April 7, 1978. As I sat quietly with electrodes taped to my fingers, changes in skin resistance produced corresponding changes in voltage causing the ticks of the clock to slow down and speed up. I miked the clock with an AKG contact microphone and routed the ticks through a digital delay system, controlling the delay time with the output voltage from the GSR. A small current is sent through the body, the response to which is amplified, producing an output voltage which can be used to control various devices. A GSR is designed to measure differences in skin resistance caused by changes in emotional state.

I bought a Westclox Silver Bell Monogram in a local store and ordered a galvanic skin response sensor (GSR) through the Edmund Scientific Catalogue. I wanted to make a work in which a performer could speed up and slow down time, stopping it, if possible, simply by thinking. I first got the idea for Clocker in 1978. For amplified clock, performer with galvanic skin response sensor and digital delay system