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Related Artworks
What follows is a collection of artists that produce works which are similar to my own artwork.
Be it in form, function, aesthetics or interests, I find resemblance between my art and that of these artists. Artist names link to their home page and project images link to the specific project mentioned.
Weather Sonifications
In this project, collected weather data is used to create musical compositions. Specifics can be found in the link provided. What I find interesting about this project is how it uses its data set in an unexpected context. The weather data that this project uses would typically be mapped graphically in a manner similar to that seen in meteorological reports on news broadcasts. In Dukich's artwork however, that very same weather data is translated into an auditory context. In shifting the data's context, what was previously purely informative becomes something more expressive and enjoyable, fun even. This is where I find similarities to my current artwork. My project aims to shift the context of a data set and make that data perceptible in a new mode, a mode that is more expressive, a mode that can be felt, not just understood. Whereas Dukich used weather data to create music, I am using data collected from music to create images.
Another project from Dukich that I enjoyed is
Birds on a Wire: Latah Creek. Here, birds are photographed as they land on an electrical wire. The spacing between birds or the "inter-bird interval" is used as the rhythmic spacing between notes in a musical composition. Once again, data is being used in an unexpected, novel context for compelling, expressive results.
Convergenze Parallele, 2006
With this artwork, Ernesto Klar creates a system which analyses and visualizes the movement of airborne dust particles. The artwork allows viewers/participants to pick from a pile of dust and blow that dust into a beam of light, under which a camera is placed. The camera records the movement of the dust particles and displays that movement graphically on a projected screen. That movement data is also expressed as sound, representing the data in an auditory context. I think that with this project, Klar makes an compelling gallery installation. The physical space of the gallery presentation has strong aesthetic properties. The artwork is also conceptually interesting. While the movement of dust might not typically be particularly exciting, Klar's project makes that data fascinating. His project shifts both the scale and context its data set (dust movement). Like this artwork, my project also aims to be interactive. My project will also scale a data set. In Klar's project, the data set is amplified, increased or exaggerated. In my project, the data set will be reduced. I will be reducing the complexity of audio data (from a radio or other digital audio input) into a format that can fit within the constraints of a bitmap image. Specifically, three (color) values per pixel. Another similarity between Klar's project and mine is that both projects analyze data and create output concurrently or in real-time.
Organismos, 2002
This artist group's documentation is all in Spanish so I might miss some of the finer details. Nonetheless, Google Translate should help me to understand the project enough to describe the main points. Essentially, creature models were created, possibly somehow influenced or derived from audio recordings of a saxophone. Next, these creatures were placed in virtual aquatic environment. Finally, the creatures were animated using an algorithm which transferred the characteristic of an audio recording into the movements of the creatures. Audio analysis drives the behavior and movements of the creatures. I enjoyed this project because, once again, data is taken from one context and being utilized in another. Here audio data manipulates the movements of virtual creatures. Audio data becomes movement or animation data. Similarly, my project makes use of audio analysis, in my case via a Fast Fourier Transform (FFT) algorithm, but in the case of Organismos, the audio analysis technique is not stated. My project won't use audio data to influence digital models but rather to influence pixels in an image.
Voz Alta, 2008
With this artwork, Lozano-Hemmer created a memorial for the 40th anniversary of a student massacre in 1968, Mexico City. To participate in the artwork, users speak into a megaphone. Their voices (digital audio signals) are sent to a series of high-powered searchlights and their message is converted into a sequence of flashes. Here, the original data is transformed form a medium of sound into the medium of light. The major similarity I find between my current project and this artwork is the conversion of sound to light. While this artwork makes the data conversion for symbolic reasons, my project makes the data conversion for the purpose of representation, expressing its data in a alternate form as to try to better understand the data's structure and properties. My project is about understanding audio data in a different context or mode, while Lozano-Hemmer's project is about expressing audio data (the human voice, speech) in a symbolic manner. Both project use a similar type of data conversion but for a different reason.
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