↩️ Return to portfolio home Nik Swift - New Media Portfolio
<aside> 💡 TL;DR:
Recurring livestream show on Twitch, with musical performances and interactive activities weekly.
Made in TouchDesigner.
</aside>
2021 - Quarantined in Chicago, IL
Designer, Performer, Developer
6 months
Off the heels of my Coronation (€) project, I took a break from the creative pace I had been maintaining in favor of engaging with the important political discourse surrounding Black Lives Matter during summer 2020.
As summer ended, I began to engage with Twitch as a consumer - I began to discover and follow artists doing creative projects on the platform, well outside the gaming community that I had known Twitch to be up until that point.
It didn’t take long to decide on downloading OBS and experimenting with livestreaming as a medium myself. It seemed perfect - could integrate sound, visuals, and interactivity in a format that allowed for the social distancing that was still required among society.
My discovery of TouchDesigner was the last piece of the puzzle - within weeks of downloading it, I began this new project, a livestream with (at least) weekly installments, combining this new tool with my background as a DJ to provide a multisensory experience and cultivate a remote community.
Start small: I knew that I wouldn’t get anywhere if I tried to make an extremely complex project right at the beginning - the first week’s performance was the simplest setup that I could handle, knowing that the system would grow over time.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9bMHSJLXwYA&t=2s&ab_channel=Tiwonku
Easter Eggs: The primary vehicle for the stream’s growth, I would create a new interactive activity or visual effect every week, and gave each one a keyword that I would ask the audience to guess while providing hints (need examples!!)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CQEPybaBgJU&t=7s&ab_channel=Tiwonku
Festivals: As the stream grew in complexity, quality and size, I began to reach out and collaborate with groups that I shared circles with on Twitch. In particular, I joined the “Golden Shrimp Guild” community and began performing in their monthly synthesizer-themed festival called Synthfest, where I could explore a different style of performance beyond the DJ’ing that took the majority of the stream.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=avF3btmJNu8&t=836s&ab_channel=Tiwonku