Looking Outward-04 Sound Art

Link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_gk9n-2lBb8&ab_channel=MediaArtTube

I looked at the project The Prouduct – Soundmachines, where it is three rotating disks mimicking the form of a vinyl disk player. Different from a traditional disk player, the disk contains visual information displayed through color and black and white patterns and the receiver reads these patterns and returns a sound for each color. The project includes three of these disks, each holding different visual information.

What I really admire about the project is its abstraction of sound, where in many music software, sound is displayed in a sonogram, which is often harder for people of comprehend. However, the abstraction of the audial qualities into easy-to-understand visual patterns make very simple for one to understand the audio qualities which otherwise is illegible.

The algorithm as the description as said, “translates concentric visual patterns into control signals.” I assume the receiver would reads the color values on the disk as the disk rotates in concentric motion, in the algorithm, each color would represent a different signal input into a music software, and outputs a sound through the software.

The artist’s sensibilities with both visual and audible qualities is clearly expressed in the project, where the artist uses simple geometric shapes to create a symphony of sounds. The artists is also most likely a follow of digital music, where the output comes from a music sequencer.