Alice Fang–Looking Outwards–4

Turbulent Forms

Dan Tapper is a British artist who combines code with his interest in celestial bodies and objects in the universe. The second iteration of his project Turbulent Forms is in collaboration with the Canadian Music Centre, and is a sonification of cosmic phenomena. Using abstract ideas of space and chaos, Tapper created software that generated modulated “sine tones of various pitches” and then collaborated with various artists and composers to create a composition. In total, six songs were produced, and performed at a NOVA concert.

While listening to the pieces, I was immediately reminded of the scores produced for the movie Interstellar, and it’s interesting how the generated pitches and almost mechanized sounds lend themselves to imagery of being in space. The general concept of the music is to “collectively simulate motions of bodies being pulled into the influence of a black hole” and that feeling of nothingness, of tension and anxiety, are definitely captured by the different pieces. I also think it’s really interesting that some of the artists actually pulled from NASA recordings as source material, creating an ambience that is very reminiscence of space.

Read more about this collaborative project!