Photo of Šarapovas’ Muscial Scultpure

Artist Andrius Šarapovas’ room-sized, interactive, musical sculpture features 77 individual installations comprised of a metal bar, sound activator, sound damper, resonator, and mechatronics that are used to make generative music. The project consists of 16 notes, C, D, F and G spread across 4 octaves, which are distributed throughout the room so that one can hear different music compositions at different points in the room. A note is made by the project’s algorithm which is activated by the algorithms from the apps on the Tele2’s 4G network. The algorithm for the project uses one second of 4G statistical data to generate one second of music. With multiple phones and installations, this creates a rhythm or musical pattern and sound volume. The pitch is determined by the amount of data that’s being downloaded on the phones. This algorithm seems so simple, yet it’s outcome is amazing. “The probability of the repetition of an identical four-note combination is about once in every 98,304 activations”, Šarapovas explains. What’s so admirable about this project is that the algorithm is very straightforward but the result is so complex and combinatory. You can see the artist’s artistic sensibility through this fact. As it states in the article, “Early on, Šarapovas settled on a minimalist spatial object that would consist of a number of identical segments… to balance the sound, control noises, dampen different notes, and activate sounds”.

Šarapovas Massive Robotic Instrument

Yuri Suzuki Design collaborated with High Atlanta to create the Sonic Playground, an outdoors display of sound-interactive sculptures. There are a total of six steel sculptures, and they manipulate sound depending on where visitors stand, listen, and talk. The calculations for each sculpture’s optimization were done with the softwares: Grasshopper, and Rhinoceros 3D; Grasshopper is a software for writing programs visually, and Rhinoceros 3D is for making 3D models. Combination of both softwares allowed the creators to control sound source, direction of the sound, and reflect sound from various sculpture pieces. The creator’s artistic sense is shown through the distinct shapes of the sculptures, and the bright colors added to them in order to make the sculptures seem more fun. I think that this project is interesting because of how interactive it can be; the idea of allowing people to interact by moving around the sculptures adds a new dimension to sound art.

Source: http://www.creativeapplications.net/sound/sonic-playground-playful-acoustics-by-yuri-suzuki-design/

A MaxMSP patch that turns weather data into music – January 2016

I’ve looked at weather data before as a part of site analysis. I can’t see the connection to this.

Algorithmic Composition is, as the username suggests, an algorithmic composer. Since 2009, they’ve been blogging and posting tutorials on just that. They made the MaxMSP (Max being a visual programming language focused on media) patch above that translates weather data into sound. What’s impressive to me is how much more it does; the patch has options for changing instruments, octaves, pitch, and tempo for the four tracks that can be mixed. As a result, it can do so much with just a single data set, although just by listening to it I can’t see how someone could trace it back to its origins.

Algorithmic Composition says

“You don’t have to be a programmer to make algorithmic music, just an interest in creating music in new ways”

and I think that shows through in their work. It’s making music in a new way.