Sarah Kang – Looking Outwards – 10

Trevor Henderson is an MIT student in computer science who has invented a new algorithm that produces a “portamento” effect – the effect of gliding a note at one pitch into a note of a lower or higher pitch – between any two audio clips. His new algorithm is based on a geometry-based framework that facilitates the most productive paths to move data points between more than one origin and destination configurations. Henderson applies this optimal transport to interpolating audio signals, which blends the signals or sounds into each other.

This project really intrigued me because I had never really focused on the transformations of sounds and it was amazing how the two different sound categories morphed into each other. I feel like this would open up a lot of opportunities for computational music in the future.