Politics I

Politics I is a participatory work of music created by Eric Lemmon. For performances of this work, please get in touch at [email protected].

For more about this work, please visit my website.

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Table of Contents

1. Technical Requirements
2. Installation
3. Registering for requisite services and getting access to web APIs
4. Setting up Politics I Environment
5. Running
6. Bibliography

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Technical Requirements

• Minimum: Stereo PA System & Sub
• Projector Screen
• Projector
• Stable Internet Connection

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Installation

Politics I requires many different dependencies. This README file will walk you through downloading and installing the software required for Politics I and its installation.

NB: Politics I has only been tested and run on MacOS. All installation instructions are based on the assumption that you are running MacOS Monterey.

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Installing Dependencies from Source

Step 1:

Download and install Python 3.9.2

Step 2:

Download and install SuperCollider

Step 3:

Download and install Ableton Live 11

Step 4:

Download and install Twilio CLI interface

Step 5:

Download and install ngrok CLI interface

Step 6:

Download and install Postgresql

Step 7:

Download and install Redis from source

Step 8:

Download and install Processing

Step 9:

Download and extract Politics I from github into a directory of your choosing

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Installing Dependencies with Brew

Step 1:

Download and install Python 3.9.2

Step 2:

Download and install Ableton Live 11

Step 3:

Download and install Processing

Step 4:

Install brew from terminal

$ /bin/bash -c "$(curl -fsSL https://raw.githubusercontent.com/Homebrew/install/HEAD/install.sh)"

Step 5:

Install all other requisite packages

$ brew install \ --cask supercollider \ ngrok/ngrok/ngrok \ git \ postgresql \ redis && brew tap twilio/brew && brew install twilio

Step 6:

Clone Politics I from GitHub

$ git clone https://github.com/eclemmon/politics_1.git

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Registering for Services and Getting Access to APIs

Sign up for Twilio

Twilio is a low-cost, enterprise messaging service provider. This service is how Politics I sends and receives sms messages from and too the audience.

Step 1:

Register for Twilio

Step 2:

Buy a phone number on Twilio.

Step 3:

Fill Twilio account as needed. Running a performance of Politics I takes <$20 to buy the number and fill the account for a concert, depending on the number of people in the audience.

Sign up for Twitter

Step 1:

Register for Twitter

Step 2:

Create a Developer account and go through the process of applying for a standalone app.

NB: so that the tweepy message responder can reply to tweets automatically in Politics I, OAuth 1.0a must be turned on:

Register for Discord

Step 1:

Register for Discord and log in via web browser

Step 2:

Create a new server

Step 3:

Navigate to Discord's application developer portal.

Step 4:

Create a new application

Step 5:

Add the bot

Step 6:

Make the bot private and get the token

Step 7:

Go to the Oauth2 --> URL Generator tab and check the bot option in scopes

Step 8:

Set the bot permissions and copy the generated URL

Step 9:

Add the bot to your server

Step 10:

In your discord server, go to server settings by hitting the carrot at the top left near the server name.

Step 11:

Click on the integrations tab

Step 12:

Select the webhooks option and create a new webhook.

Step 13:

Set the webhook name, set the target channel where participants can chat, save changes, and copy the webhook URL into the .env file

PHEW! All done with setting up discord!

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Setting up Politics I Environment

Set up Postgresql

Follow these instructions. When you are choosing what to name the database, you can name it whatever you want, but it is recommended that the name is something recognizably associated with the piece, like politics_1_prod.

Set up Python

Step 1:

Navigate to your Politics I directory in terminal:

$ cd /path/to/politics_1

Step 2:

Initialize a virtual environment with python:

$ python3 -m venv /path/to/new/virtual/environment

Step 3:

Activate your python virtual environment:

$ source myvenv/bin/activate

Step 4:

Install required python packages:

$ (venv) python3 -m pip install -r requirements.txt

Step 5:

Install processing-java for CLI control of processing sketches.

• Open Processing IDE in ~/path/to/Processing
• In the menubar select tools > install processing-java:

Set Environment Variables

Step 1:

Still in your politics I directory, create a .env file through Terminal, which will store global environment variables. NB: You may need to execute ⌘ + ⇧ Shift + . to see this file after its creation.

$ touch .env

Step 2:

Open the .env file and fill out the empty fields following the = symbol. For example, after TWILIO_ACCOUNT_SID=, you will place your unique String Identifier code, which will look something like this: SMXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX (see instructions below to find all authentication tokens for both Twilio, Discord, and Twitter).

# GET THESE TWILIO VALUES FROM TWILIO DASH
TWILIO_ACCOUNT_SID=
TWILIO_AUTH_TOKEN=
TWILIO_PHONE_NUMBER=

# GET THESE TWITTER VALUES FROM TWITTER DEV DASH
TWITTER_CONSUMER_KEY=
TWITTER_CONSUMER_SECRET=
TWITTER_ACCESS_TOKEN=
TWITTER_ACCESS_SECRET=

# YOUR TWITTER HANDLE GOES HERE, AUDIENCE MEMBERS SHOULD BE INSTRUCTED TO TWEET AT YOUR ACCOUNT
SEARCH_TERM=

# YOUR DISCORD TOKEN, GUILD, AND WEBHOOKS GO HERE
DISCORD_TOKEN=
DISCORD_GUILD=
DISCORD_WEBHOOK=

# SOME LOGIC VALUES FOR RUNNING THE PROGRAM
MOVEMENT=1
SCORED=false
DAW=true
DEBUG=true,
SECRET_KEY=abc123

# SHOULD BE THE NAME OF THE POSTGRES DB YOU CREATED
SQLALCHEMY_DATABASE_URI=postgresql:///politics_1_prod

# DEFAULT DIRECTORY FOR SUPERCOLLIDER ALLOWING FOR AUTO-BOOT VIA SHELL SCRIPT
SC_DIR="/Applications/SuperCollider.app/Contents/MacOS"

Twilio SID and Auth Token instructions.

Instructions for finding and getting twitter authentication keys and secrets.

Get Discord bot token.

Get Discord webhook.

Once all these variables are set, you should be almost ready to go!

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Running Politics I

First, boot the messaging servicer(s):

$ sh run.sh

Then, open Live and SuperCollider (whether you open live will depend on the movement you are performing) and execute any necessary supercollider code in the movement_name_main.scd file. Then navigate back to the directory of the movement you are performing and execute:

$ sh run_movement_name.sh

NB: In the future, you will not need to run SuperCollider code manually, as sclang and scsynth will be run from the shell scripts automatically.

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If you have any questions, or any steps seem to be missing in this installation walk-through, let me know! Contact me at [email protected]

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Bibliography