Category: LookingOutwards-04

LO: Algorithmic Music Video

For this weeks LO, I looked into how computational softwares + algorithms could be incorporated into art that combines both visual and sonic elements.

I came across the music video for Howler Monkey by German duo Meier and Erdmann. The video itself was created by Victor Doval, a visual artist, that developed an algorithm that tracks the frequencies in the song to generate an ever-changing landscape.

Image from Victor Doval’s website visualizing his working process for the video.

I felt that this work was especially intriguing because it comments on the human perception of music. Although music and sound can have lasting effects and influences on our lives, the experience of listening is inherently an extremely temporal process.

Doval’s visual interpretation of how we are forever impacted by any sound/song we encounter and engage with while each passing second is temporary through a generative landscape begins to question the purpose of art in our lives. By using algorithm and software to help situate the listener in a virtual (and visual) space, Doval allows us to question why we seek art (in all forms and mediums) when inherently, each fleeting moment with the pieces are so temporal; do we seek immediate pleasure, or hope to grow with each time?

LO-04 (sound art)

The Weather Thingy created by Adrien Kaeser is an instrument modifier that is controlled through variables generated by the weather. It is a simple idea that can be manipulated in a highly flexible way. I find this to be extremely compelling due to the fact that it can actually be seen as a way to translate a feeling or ambiance into musical composition. The ability to transform external feelings into parameters that affect the outcome of one’s creative works, which offers a kind of push and pull dichotomy between creator and the created. Kaeser uses a series of arduino modules and weather sensors and codes the whole project with arduino, C++, and MIDI. Although the code isn’t demonstrated, I assume each weather input (wind, direction, rain, sun) controls/limits the sound that the original instrument can create to result in the total output. What’s pretty clever is that he also added a range modifier which allows for this project to be utilized in calm (amplify) or violent (limit) situations.

https://www.ecal.ch/en/3843/studies/bachelor/media-interaction-design/presentation/weather-thingy

LookingOutwards- 04

Shore Scene Soundtrack by Cevdet Erek

One work of computational sound art that I found interesting while researching was the Shore Scene Soundtrack, (https://www.artsy.net/artwork/cevdet-erek-sss-shore-scene-soundtrack), by artist Cevdet Erek. It is an interactive project that simulates the sounds and waves of the ocean when hands move across a carpeted material. I found this work of art inspiring because it taps into people’s memories and brings back their experiences of hearing the sea, while directly interacting with a physical material. In terms of the algorithms that generated the work, I think that the artist would have used loops and repetitions to simulate the ripples of the sounds of the sea. A cascading effect also would have been created through the use of gradual or incremental decreasing and increasing the aspect of the volume variable. The way that the artist envisioned the ocean and was inspired from it reflects in the final work because of the realness of the feeling of the sound, which to many people is nostalgic. This work was installed in Sydney Biennal, and also won the Nam June Paik award in 2012.

LO 4 – Sound Art

“Multiverse” by fuse works is a real time audiovisual installation that explores the evolution of universes through generative graphics and sounds. A multiverse is a system of infinite number of universes that exist outside our space-time. I admire the artists visual take on the cosmos and their choice of presenting it in a 7.5 meter high vertical projection that is specifically placed inside a deconsecrated church. Interacting with this piece immediately draws the viewer in and one may feel encapsulated by its hypnotic visuals. They used openFrameworks that generates various scenes which interacts with Ableton Live and Max/MSP for the production of the generative sound system. The gravitational collapse of matter theorized by Lee Smolin describes that matter does not end in a singular black hole but through a, “child – universe”. This idea is captured by the simulation’s generative nature that allows the creation of infinite variation of ephemeral images.

LO: Sound Art

Meandering River (2018) by onformative

One particular sound art project I find interesting is the Meandering River, created from a collaboration between onformative and Funkhaus Berlin. Meandering River is an audiovisual art installation made from real-time generated visuals and music composed by an A.I. The Meandering River is a captivating and vibrant landscape that imitates the flow of rivers and how they shape the natural landscape. Based on a custom-made code, the music constantly reinterprets river patterns and changes into sound. The installation brings awareness to the beauty of nature and its complexity in how impactful small changes can be over time. The music and visuals are engaging, pulling the audience into an emotional experience.

Meandering River (2018) by onformative: https://onformative.com/work/meandering-river

LO4 – Sound Art

As a musician who plays music for fun, I have an interest in the production of music as well as DAWs and loop creators. When I saw The Prouduct’s project, “Soundmachines, Creative Sound Production Device,” I was immediately fascinated. It’s a live loop creator that uses three turntables to create musical loops. It seems that it operates based on reflective input at the turntable’s “needle.” When a specific light intensity, or possibly color is reflected back into the needle, a program will play an expected sound. For example, the middle turntable manages bass kicks and hi hats, possibly a snare drum as well but the blue strip was never explicitly shown. The right handles an electronic clicking in a certain rhythm, while the left handles a filter effect on some wave function. I think that the final result of a modern-esque turntable was created more for the creator’s aesthetics than the practicality of the piece, as any loop generator can simply use button toggles. However, I appreciate the turntable design, as it gives a visualization to the loop that is being created.

Video of the project in use.

LO – Sound Art

“Weather Thingy”, the invention by Adrien Kaeser uses real-time climate data to produce sound. The two main components are a weather station mounted on a tripod microphone, and a custom-built controller connected to the weather station. The controller will use variations on the weather, and the user’s input, to constrain or amplify values to produce different sounds on Kaeser’s keyboard. I am interested as to how this technology/application can be taken further. It would be interesting to see how this could be used long-term and produce music based on weekly or yearly weather.

LO-Sound Art

Iris Yip iyip
15-104 Section D
LO-04

A project with an interesting application of sound art is Prélude in ACGT – Sonification of personal (DNA) data by Pierry Jacquillard. The project uses DNA (chromosomes 1-22, XY) and converts it to artificial sound, successfully creating music. His intention was to create an intersection between nature’s “core structure” (DNA) and “artificial, man-made (CODE)”, exploring different interpretations of the idea of one’s personal “data” and deconstruct it to understand the way that these different processes translate into one another.

He created five different interfaces for the intention of simplifying and breaking down the conversion process. I was personally drawn to this project because I was fascinated with the way that it took a natural processes like the structure of our DNA and chromosomes and translated it into sound through the similarities between our biology and the way we’ve intentionally structured and built our coding languages. The way that the artist structured the conversion between our DNA and the four types of molecular bases (ACGT) with code shows a good grasp of both the biological and technological processes involved. The “rationale” (or discussion) behind the piece and how information is retrieved, understood, and maintained in different ways also produced a fascinating conversation about the nature of individuality and the creation of life itself.

LO 4 – Sound Art

Images of Ikeda’s Test Pattern sound and light display.

Test Pattern 100m Version

Ryoji Ikeda (2013)

The piece of sound art that I chose to study this week is Ryoji Ikeda’s Test Pattern 100m Version. Ikeda is known for using datasets to create visceral and overwhelming displays of sound and light. The Test Pattern series uses a real-time programming system that converts data such as text, photos, movies, and sounds in barcode patterns of binary 0s and 1s. The purpose of the project is to “examine the relationship between critical points of device performance and the threshold of human perception” (Ryoji Ikeda) by visually displaying intense flickering panels of black and white (which correspond with the barcode patterns) that synchronise perfectly with the audio. The velocity of the moving images is extremely fast, to the point that it’s almost epileptic; viewers stand on the huge flashing screen in a dark room and are enveloped by sound and light.   

LO 04 – Music and Art

Art Title: Expressions
Artists: Kenichi Yoneda and Yu Miyashita

The art piece is a video compilation that ties art to music. The art itself sometimes appears like a physical painting and others as a computer generated piece. This is the most admirable part in my opinion as it combines so many forms of art and can even generate realistic painting using rendering. There were many maps drawn to create the realistic rendering which shows the extensive work put into the piece. The artistic sensibilities are manifested in mocking traditional art styles using more modern techniques. The algorithms used to create the art were most likely very complicated not only to just make the pictures and designs, but the animations as well. Additionally, I am unsure if the music was created to match the animations of if the motion was based upon the music. In either case, the logistics of matching the two art forms was probably extremely difficult and tiresome. The beauty of the art is using so many different techniques and mediums to give the final result.

link: https://www.creativeapplications.net/sound/expressions-paint-and-pixel-matiere-at-micro-scale/

Expressions – Paint and pixel matière at micro-scale