Looking Outwards: Life From Sound, Interactions, Sound from Life

Nightingale and Canary from Andy Thomas on Vimeo.

Australian artist Andy Thomas has recently created projects which feature computer generated “organisms” by analyzing the sounds of birds. The combination of vibrant colors with the sounds is incredible on its own as it creates a beautiful audio-visual art piece aesthetically. Technically, this piece is just inspiring to think about. Thomas describes multiple different technical software he used for his analysis and creation of his pieces and they just, and to create something so refreshing with those is very nice. This also peaks my interest because It is utilizing some outside force (bird sounds) which are out of Thomas’ control to actually realise the piece itself.

Fluir (2013) from Biopus on Vimeo.

While Biopus is obviously not the first collective to utilize an interactive touch table, the project is inspiring because it forces the audience to be a part of the piece itself. The size of the table (12 meters) also allows large groups to interact with the table all at once. THe emotional response and creations of the participants themselves are inspirational because I aim to get groups to interact with the work that I create and force some type of tactile or indirect interaction. The software interface they created also looks very clean, possibly even too clean. I’m not sure if I would like to create a project that is similar to this project’s scale, but this may be influencing me to design a more clunky interface. I’m not exactly sure.

Passive Sound Recovery System by :

Abe Davis, Michael Rubinstein, Neal Wadhwa, Gautham J. Mysore, Fredo Durand, Wialliam T. Freeman

I first saw this project when it went viral earlier this month. This is a sound recovery tool which analyzes a video and then passively recovers the sound from that video by examining tiny micro movements in the video. Now I don’t believe this software or demonstration was actually meant to be an art piece, but as a first unveiling of a tool, I think it’s fantastic.

It was incredible to imagine that sound could be recovered from silent video. Unfortunately the system is just a tool at this point. I want to see this tool used in some greater context. To examine old silent films or to do some type of playful spying which is later documented as a more in depth art piece. As of now, it is a bit disappointing to see it used in such a limited context.