Andrew McCafferty:
Practice and Potential for DYCP

Senses of Tumour

As part of publicity for the Soundscapes exhibition at The National Gallery, I wrote about what music I hear when I see an inspirational painting. I chose Tangent 42, by electronic musician, HERD, in relation to Avenue at Chantilly by Cezanne. Subsequently, I was invited to talk about the painting as part of a curatorial project series.

This is a recording of an interactive presentation about my project, where my methods share a common creative process with Cezanne.

Senses of Tumour project presentation at The National Gallery, 2017. Length: 23 minutes.

Create, Explore, Play: Process behind Senses of Tumour

This video shows the sonification (Fourier transform), of a model tumour, ran through visual programming software (Quartz Composer—now defunct)—gradually modulating the source sounds. This real-time interaction shows an attempt to find the ‘magic’ frequency, which will turn the black (tumour) into white (normal cell behaviour), through a variety of user interfaces; mouse, MIDI controller, keyboard. Different sounds/musical styles can be programmed dependent on user preferences. Here, I worked with ambience, for a calmer, meditative interaction. For an immersive sound experience, I have used binaural spatialisations; using headphones you can ‘feel’ frequencies on different parts of the body.

Experimental process behind Senses of Tumour. Length: 5 minutes.

Pathotones

My first prototype. Photographs from an exhibition, showing the public playing a musical score generated from an ultrasound image. Here, the game is played via a MIDI controller keyboard—the user is required to play the score correctly to shrink the tumour (black area). A more immersive experience was also available via 3D glasses, with different digital instruments also options.

“Trying to accomplish it was keeping me really focused on the idea”

— Participant from exhibition

*Pathotones*, Interactive digital audio-visual game, 2014.

Symbiogenesis

ChairArt held a major exhibition at a local theatre, where I presented a research poster in response to the chair artwork, Symbiosis. The poster presents original interdisciplinary practice, exploring relationships between art and science, and its role in wellbeing; exploring the creative use of digital image processing techniques, and can be seen as both a testing, and teaching device.

The One Thing

The One Thing is an interactive digital painting printed on HD Metal, glossy aluminium substrate, with PIR motion activated audio playback module. Made by the creation of images from sound, using computer graphics, scientific imaging, and music production software.

“The One Thing is not an ordinary viewing experience. A distinctive, foreboding free fall into the mind of the artist which delivers an overwhelming feeling of gratification”

— Collector Testimonial

*The One Thing*, HD Metal Print, glossy aluminium substrate, with PIR motion activated audio playback module. 60 x 77.1 cm, variable audio playback. 2020. Held in a private collection.

Just Another Vanitas

Originated from Holbein’s mysterious painting, The Ambassadors, the artwork is a project following discussion with an art historian. Mystery is centred on understanding the anamorphosis of the skull. Imagine holding it in your hand!? Starting as a scan of a real skull, it was sculpted using the 2D Ambassadors skull as reference. I discovered the correct plane to apply a perspective transformation in CAD, producing the 3D anamorphism. His iconic anamorphic skull is ‘brought to life’ as a 3D-printed sculpture making the ‘impossible’ physical. This bridges the gap between the digital and physical, making the virtual world felt.

Tracing My Echo

The What and Where of Eidos is an immersive, audio-visual installation representing the space inside an abandoned historical building. A computer translates sound frequencies into musical notation, with visual equivalents of audio ‘objects’ presented. The aim is to bring the space to life and transport the viewer into a subject of, and active participant in the multi-sensory experience.

Sequence

Sequence is a collaborative 3D anaglyph and binaural audio moving image diptych. The work aims to evoke neurological responses in the ‘viewer’, presenting an alternate reality, telling a multi-sensory story. This work explores what the combined process can reveal by questioning individual experiences of reality; reconstructed events alongside first-hand experiences of them.

“Your work could help so many people, especially those who are physically/sensorially disadvantaged in some way. It could also be valuable to anyone who has experienced some kind of traumatic/disruptive event”
— Lucy Fernandes

Sequence, 3D anaglyph video and binaural audio. Collaboration with Francesca McCafferty. 2:06 minutes, 2012.

“The fluency of digital manipulations was my focus of excitement with your work.”
— Tim Pickup, Genetic Moo - London Group Member (exhibited with at London Group Centenary Open, 2013)

3 Brothers

3 Brothers is a digital artwork prompted by a request from my mother to restore a faded photograph of me and my brothers from the mid 1980’s. The finished image is a re-creation of this reality: fragmented, saturated colour, 3D anaglyph effects and enlarged to life size. The work is concerned with memory and embodiment, defining space in relationship to the body and the architecture it lives in.

“3 Brothers is essentially a time machine. The resulting window into the past is a life sized, three-dimensional and fully Technicolor experience”
— Dr Peter Crack

3 Brothers, London Group Centenary Open. 2013. Featured next to the work of Albert Irvin RA in exhibition publications.

Exhibition marketing and views of the show, held at Blyth Gallery, Imperial College London, 2008.

ARSciE Project

Interdisciplinary practice is illuminated by pieces drawn from the ARSciE project, a collaboration between Imperial scientists and artists, curated by Dora Tang and Larry Achiampong. They each present methods of deferring the institution whilst reaching across boundaries. This exhibition highlighted a point in time in the research, emerged from a series of spontaneous and coordinated dialogues.

Sladonia

Sladonia invites the viewer to pervade pictorial elements that might make up space-time: painterly elements taken from photographic reproductions, translated back into space again through the shapes they have acquired through the perspective photographed. A repeated cycle of the origins of the shapes from found scientific footage: 2D imagery into semi 3D installations, flat but in space.