Carsten Nicolai is a german artist and musician based in berlin. He often incorporates mathematic patterns such as grids and codes, as well as error, random and self-organizing structures.
For his musical attributes he uses the pseudonym alva noto; leading his sound experiments into the field of electronic music by creating his own code of acoustics and visual symbols.
Reflektor distortion is a rotating, basin filled with water – is inspired by the shape of a parabolic mirror that ‘rotates’ water. The installation consists of the three main parts including mirror, reflection and distortion. Both the curve and distortion of the water is affected by speed and integrated resistors that generate a permanently new and re-organizing mirror reflection. The water surface will be affected by the speaker due to the low sound frequencies. Therefore, the water shows the distorted reflection; ultimately personifying a distorted reality.
Keiko Uenishi is known for being a sound art-i-vist, as she described herself on her website bio. Her work includes reconstructing and experimenting with materials and one’s relationship with them in sociological and psychological environments. Uenishi’s present works include BroadwayDreams, Aboard: Fillip2, LandFilles, and many others.
Her installation LandFilles_UrbanDump is a project that took place at the Emily Harvey Foundation located in New York City in 2013. This piece was very inspiring because it takes a look at our urban environments using recycled material. This project was divided into several steps:
Collection and Construction: recycling empty, clear, plastic bottles and constructing a structure from recycled materials
Live processes/Performance: the structure is built with help from visitors and interacts with the pieces to produce audio feedback derived from the hollow shapes of the bottles.
Demolition/Giveaway: the structure is torn down and given away to visitors or other people.
The Mesa Musical Shadows is an interactive music playing device that allows people to create music through the use of their shadows. This device was created by Montreal’s Daily Tous Les Jours studio and is located in the north plaza at Mesa Arts Center in Arizona. This singing pavement has four different tracks that changes depending on the time of day–morning, afternoon, evening, and night. Additionally, 47 light sensors are controlled through 6 control nodes and speakers are carefully placed in areas where water could not reach them.
I admire the fact that the workers in the studio wanted to implement the voice of the community members and students who live in Arizona. Through surveys and feedback from those people, the studio bought prototypes to test out what products could most accurately reflect what the public wants. They not only focused on the aspect of people playing around with their shadows to generate music, they also tried to take into consideration the people sitting on the sides, who could also feel more relaxed and happy watching others formulate a joyful tune on the musical cement.
In 2014, visual artist, David Bowen, created an installation, “cloud piano”, that plays the piano based on cloud movements and shapes. How this is done is that Bowen has a camera set up that is pointed towards the sky and takes video of the clouds. Using a software he made, the video causes a device to press down on the corresponding piano keys. The whole act of the installation is to make it seem like the clouds are pressing the piano keys as they move across the sky and go through shape changes. Ultimately, the sound that is played on the piano is made up of a bunch of different sound patterns that Bowen describes as “ethereal forms that build, sweep, fluctuate and dissipate in the sky”.
What I think is really cool about this project is the fact that it is so beautifully and intricately constructed. It is cool to see how sound, art and technology can all be tied in together. Bowen’s work definitely gears towards this side of things, but it is amazing to see things like this done because it is so opposite of what I would do or how I create my art.
Amanda Ghassaei’s Ambient Synthesis is a physical product that reacts to sunlight with sound. The result is a surreal ringing sound that produces symmetrical Rorschach like light patterns in a bright space. What I admire most about this project is the attention to form giving this machine has. It is taking natural input, the sun, through technology and sensors, and outputting an aesthetically pleasing light pattern all encompassed in a obelisk-like box. I also think her approach to sound is interesting in that she is taking all these simple frequency sounds but when you put them together its complex, otherwise called additive synthesis.
In terms of software and hardware, Ghassaei’s Ambient Sound runs a MaxMSP FM Synthesis patch called straw in order for the light to be properly converted into corresponding sounds. Ghassaei’s intention was to create a piece that could incorporate the evolving landscape to create a wide range of “timbres and textures.”
Howler Monkey by Meier & Erdmann is a music video created by Spanish visual artist, Victor Doval. He used the frequencies of the sounds in the music to define a landscape’s visual parameters algorithmically. This literally visualized the idea that music is a journey through a changing landscape that is interpreted through one’s ears.
Doval used Processing and Blender to create these visuals that are in sync with the music. This project was interesting to me because of the initial idea that music is a journey. I thought that this music video was a good example of what that could mean and demonstrating how that could be visualized. However, I do feel that it may interfere with other people’s interpretations.
“Sonic Pendulum” by Yuri Suzuki Design Studio in collaboration with QOSMO (2017)
Sonic Pendulum is a sound installation that utilizes artificial intelligence to create an endless soundscape. Inspired by the client’s new Audi A5 line, the installation is made up of 30 pendulums, which simulates sound through speakers and crowd movement. Networked camera and computer vision systems set up around the installation provides an understanding of the crowd size and movement, which directly correlates with the music volume, soundtrack, etc. I really admire how the artist wanted to create a form of conversation through movement and sound, where the installation is almost ‘activated’ by the visitors’ movement, and in turn responds with the most original sound that never repeats itself.
The AI algorithms used to create Sonic Pendulum was trained by a team to create an infinite composition, which reacted to movement in live space, creating moment-to-moment experiences. An application called MAXMSP was used to further train the algorithm, delivering compositions that matched the sound intensity of the space.
In terms of artistic sensibilities, not only did the studio require a working algorithm, they also had to consider space, scale, composition and rendering of installation, and also how the Audi cars aligned with the arrangement. What resulted were multiple triangular forms that encouraged interaction with passerby.
Big Bang (Icebox) is the third in a series of projects by the artist Ezra Masch. It consists of LED light poles installed in a space, which are activated by the input of a drummer and a drum set. As the drummer beats on the drum set, the LED light poles will light up in specific ways based on the tempo/beat/intesity of the drum. Masch is an artist who has a background in sculpture from RISD, but he has recently been experimenting with combining technology and art.
His work is incredibly disciplinary, combining visual art, music, and technology, and I think it mirrors the interdisciplinary spirit at CMU. I don’t know much about the algorithms that were used for his work, but his website states that his installations use custom electronics by 4MS Pedals.
If I were to critique this project, I’d love to see other instruments added to it. It could be expanded with more colors and arrangements.
Superposition is a computational sound project that was directed by Japanese artist Ryoji Ikeda. Since its creation in 2012, Ikeda has premiered this project through four different mediums: installations, performance, concert, and dvd. Superposition was premiered at the MET in New York in 2012 and attracted a lot of attention from people for its unique concept.
The project is based on sine waves and impulses and is inspired by quantum mechanics. Although the superposition theorem in quantum physics is quite difficult to fathom completely, it could be said that it is about randomness. Components of Superposition are diverse and placed precisely, but Ikeda incorporates a bit of randomness through impulses.
elements of the performance
Superposition resembles nature in that sense. Performers, video clips, images, real time contents and more visual and sound elements are constantly in effect and then muted throughout the piece. Just like in the scientific world where particles in a superposition state can never be identified in one location, these sound waves are floating in multiple locations in different states. It is also parallel to how nature is everywhere. Even people are small parts of such a vast nature and they coexist at the same time, but are scattered all around the world.
Ikeda, as a visual and sound artist successfully abstracts the superposition theorem in a visually enticing way, using bursts of sounds and images. It is interesting how the artist attempted to describe a natural phenomenon through precise calculations and execute that in sounds. The concept of tracking back and substantiating nature through pure sine waves and impulses created by shortening sine waves is interesting.
More information can be found on the project’s webpage and the interview with Ryoji Ikeda.
“Soft Sound” is a research pioneered by EJTECH (Esteban de la Torre and Judit Eszter Kárpáti) that brings together textiles and sound, and explores possibilities of enhancing multi-sensory experiences. I admire this project because it achieves its goal of using textile as an audio emitting surface. The artists created soft speakers and embedded it into fabric in order for it to emanate sonic vibrations, allowing viewers to perceive the audio through both hearing and touch. The viewers can perceive the audio through touch because due to the pulsating nature of the sound, the host textile will throb. By creating shapes of flat copper and silver coils, vinyl cutting and applying them onto different textile surfaces, and then running an alternating current through them, the artists created the speakers. They are connected to amplifiers and a permanent magnet in order to force the coil back and forth, allowing the textile attached to move back and forth and create enhanced sound waves. The artists’ sensibilities are clearly manifest in the final form, seeing the way the simple, crisp and geometric printed shapes on fabric resemble the visual language present in their other works. This project is extremely admirable to me because it displays a non physical entity as something tangible and physical, and seeing a small piece of cloth moving and creating sound is just really amazing to me.
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