Soundscapes

Nigel Johnson, David Benyon (Editor), Paul Moody (Editor)

    Research output: Non-textual formDigital or Visual Products

    Abstract

    The inspiration for this work is loosely based on Aboriginal creation myths, which told of legendary totemic beings who wandered over the continent in the Dreamtime, singing out the names of everything that crossed their path - birds, animals, plants rocks etc. and so singing the world into existence.Soundscapes is a contemporary exploration of this theme, by re-synthesising and giving voice to images of the environments within which we exist, the open landscapes, cityscapes and urban sprawls the work re-interprets our surroundings through the generation of sound.Soundscapes consists of a database (catalogue) of looped moving image sequences of ten second durations that can be selected and onto which are superimposed five moveable 'targets' whose velocity and location can be controlled by the user. As these targets scan across the image, data is collected from the colour, tonality and patterns of the underlying image information and used within sound generation and compositional algorithms, so creating the interactive soundscape.Soundscapes generates its own compositions in real-time in conjunction with the image data that is being processed, as opposed to using pre-recorded or sampled sounds. Soundscapes also processes the selected image data in real-time and applies a compositional strategy (algorithm) or 'mood' that has been chosen by the user. These moods therefore form the basic building blocks of the work and can vary considerably from simple melodic forms and natural sounds to abrupt discordant passages that have little relationship to classical music scales, harmony or melody.
    Original languageEnglish
    PublisherAssociation for Computing Machinery
    DOIs
    Publication statusPublished - 2004
    EventDesigning Interactive Systems - Cambridge, Massachusetts, United States
    Duration: 1 Aug 20044 Aug 2004

    Keywords

    • Sound art

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