SOUND: Nature of Sound/Phonetics/Matter to mind.
How we perceive sound and how the Ear interprets the vibrations of sound.
Ernst Chladni the German Physicist discovered how to make sound visible by stroking with a violin bow a metal plate sprinkled with sand.
The plates' vibrations formed complex patterns with some portions (nodal lines) remaining motionless.
The nodal lines retained sand shaken onto them by the neighbouring areas that would be vibrating.

Hans Jenny the Swiss Physicist attempted to develop a system which would show two dimensional Chladni figures in 3 dimensions using vibrated amorphous materials that would reflect the X,Y,Z axis.


HISTORICAL BACKGROUND

WORD: Language as a system/transformations/crypticism
Concentrating on the work of the French Poet Arthur Rimbaud in his poem Voyelles he assigns colours to certain vowels in his poem so one needs to visualise whilst reading the poem, Rimbaud was experimenting with an early form of synathesia.

IMAGE: Response interpretations/Visual metaphors/Synathesia
The work of British Artist Jack Smith, who used esoteric calligraphs responded to everyday spoken language.
The work of Len Lye, the New Zealand avant garde filmmaker who took on board Wassily Kandinsky’s
experiments and interpreted them into moving image.

Special thanks to Digital City @ Teeside University.

Glossary

pal-imp-sest
–noun
a parchment or the like from which writing has been partially
or completely erased to make room for another text.
[Origin: 1655–65; < L palimpséstus < Gk palímpséstos rubbed again
(pálin again + pséstós scraped, rubbed, verbid of psân to rub smooth)]




CODA SOFTWARE
Designed by Peter McAdam.
Programming by Robin Fencott.


PROPOSAL FOR AN INTERACTIVE AUDIO/VISUAL SOFTWARE

“There is no such thing as silence. Something is always happening that makes a sound”
John Cage.

CODA : Is a computer software that deals with the sound from an environment and calls up imagery
from a preset library to express an ongoing fluxual piece of work for a plasma screen.

The aim is to create an animated, time-based palimpsest, where hidden images are evoked through
the recognition of sound input.
There are two custom set ups, MAIN IMAGE this is the slow transitional background a sort of
"visual wallpaper" and the CONTENT IMAGE which is based on true real time response using animation and still images from a preset library.
Note: Sound can be anything, though in my research I have concentrated on the human voice and
words, either singularly or the white noise of a crowded place.

THE FUTURE
It is my ambition to implement Artificial Intelligence into the software so no picture comes up twice.
And all you have to do is hang the plasma screen on your wall like a painting or a photograph insert
the DVD SOFTWARE, set it to a custom response and you have an evolving work of art.