Street compositions

Description

This project is about encoding and decoding, in other words, defining the transformation of symbols from one set of symbols to another one. I use the evening streets as an input.The time when daylight fades and people are back home, windows start lighting up. I record the buildings along a taken street and use the lit windows on different floors to create a code for a music box punch card. The punch card is decoded by the box into a tune. The outcome is a rhythmic soundscape of the street. The sound is a reflection of a self-organized pattern of urban activity. Its variation and complexity depends on scale and liveliness of the environment.

Development

I am fascinated by light to sound transformation. This derives from my interest in abstraction and the signals it communicates. I take as a reference point the research and work of Oscar Fischinger, Whitney brothers, Norman McLaren, Hans Richter( Rhythmus 21,23,25), . Experiments on graphical sound, early soviet inventions, work of Daphne Oram, and presently Derek Holzer.

Hans Richter talks about the shape of feelings, a notion that relates to Suzanne Langer’s idea that artistic forms have the virtual shape of emotions. Signal, information -- shapes.