Camera Lucida: Sonochemical Observatory
Camera Lucida (chamber of light or lucidity) directly transforms sound waves into light emissions by means of a phenomenon known as sonoluminescence. After adapting to the darkness surrounding the installation, one gradually perceives the detailed configurations of glowing sound fields.

The Sea

FILE 2024 | Installations
International Electronic Language Festival

The Sea is an extraction of a complex natural phenomenon, resulting in an artificial emulation that develops a life form of its own. Just like the sea with its endless waves, this artificial system follows the impact of an immersive state, leading to a unique vision of an artificial generator. Despite appearing chaotic, it is capable of generating associations ranging from the movement of waves to science fiction scenarios.

Bio

Paul Gründorfer develops process-related systems and explores variable or unstable conditions in the occurrence of sound when exposed to amplification, feedback, and multiple signal streams. His works focus on processes that evolve in a social space. Leo Peschta is an artist and researcher. During his studies, he worked in various fields of media arts, including sound, installations and software, developing over the years a special interest in robotics and machinery.

Credits

Austrian Embassy

beyond pages

The data projector loads images of a leather bound tome onto a tablet which a light pen activates, animating the objects named in it – stone, apple, door, light, writing. The soundscore immaculately emulates the motion of each against paper, save for the syllabic glyphs of Japanese script, for which a voice pronounces the selected syllable. Stone and apple roll and drag across the page, light illuminates a paper-shaded desklamp; door opens a video door in front of where you read, a naked infant romping, lifesize and laughing, in.

Scale
‘scale’ is an interspecies art project: an audience-interactive installation that involves nocturnal electric fish from the Amazon River Basin. Twelve different species of these fish comprise a choir whose sonified electrical fields provide the source tones for an immersive audiovisual environment. The fish are housed in individual tanks configured in a custom-built sculptural arc of aluminum frames placed around a central podium. The electrical field from each fish is translated into sound, and is thus heard — unprocessed or with digital effects added, with immediate control over volume via a touchscreen panel — through a 12-channel surround sound system, and with LED arrays under each tank for visual feedback. All software is custom-designed. Audience members interact as deejays with the system. Amongst the goals of the project is our desire to foster wider public awareness of these remarkable creatures, their importance to the field of neurological research, and the fragility of their native ecosystem.The project leaders comprise visual/conceptual artist Marlena Novak, composer/sound designer Jay Alan Yim, and neural engineer Malcolm MacIver. MacIver’s research focuses on sensory processing and locomotion in electric fish and translating this research into bio-inspired technologies for sensing and underwater propulsion through advanced fish robots. Novak and Yim, collaborating as ‘localStyle’, make intermedia works that explore perceptual themes, addressing both physical and psychological thresholds in the context of behavior, society/politics, and aesthetics.

Cloud
Cloud, produced on-site at the museum using thousands of feet of red electrical wire, hosts a fourteen-channel composition that visitors listen to by wearing customized headphones. These devices, developed by the artist, contain magnetic coils that receive the magnetic fields circulating in the cable loops and make them audible. As visitors move around the installation, they look at the chaotic electrical wiring suspended in the gallery but hear the prerecorded sounds programmed into different segments of the sculpture.

Fifty Sisters
“I am an artist and academic based in Melbourne, Australia. I am interested in the creative possibilities of computers and computation, in particular how computers can enhance and augment our creativity. My interests and research are relatively broad: philosophy, evolution, nature, visualisation, interaction design, software, sound, art and the moving image. I prefer the intersections between these fields, rather than the differences that set them apart.” Jon McCormack

line-wobbler
file 2019
‘Line Wobbler’ is a one-dimensional dungeon crawler with a custom controller made out of a steel spring and a five-metre long LED strip display. The entire game runs on an Arduino, with sound, particle effects and 120+fps. ‘Line Wobbler’ is an award-winning experiment in minimalism in game design, making use of novel input mechanics, retro sound, and the incorporation of physical architectural space into the game. In the game, players navigate obstacles and fight enemies to reach the exit, in a series of increasingly difficult levels. Movement is controlled by bending the Wobble controller forward and back, while enemies are attacked by flicking the spring at them. Obstacles such as lava fields, conveyor belts and slopes challenge the navigation skills of the player.

Spanish artist Sergio Prego was born in San Sebastian in 1969. Prego works in many different fields of mediaincluding video, photography, performance art, installation, and sound. His work attempts to transform therelationship between space and time in order to distort the way we comprehendthem.

Untitled
Spanish artist Sergio Prego was born in San Sebastian in 1969. Prego works in many different fields of media including video, photography, performance art, installation, and sound. His work attempts to transform the relationship between space and time in order to distort the way we comprehend them.

Field and Loops

Loops and Fields, is a collection of drawings that resonate sympathetically to the electromagnetic fields within the gallery. These graphite drawings function as graphic antennas and explore the qualities and inherent nature of a combination of hand-drawn and mathematically generated forms. Delving into algorithmic structures, fractals and the chaotic nature of the hand drawn line, these drawings are an exploration of conductive materials and the possibilities for drawing electronic components. When connected to a sound system they make audible their interior activity and reveal the energy that exists in the immediate environment.Relying on the basic principles of the directional loop antenna, the drawings in Loops and Fields, like any receiving antenna, convert an electromagnetic wave into a voltage; the loop antenna is particularly sensitive to magnetic fields and outputs a voltage proportional to that field. Monitoring this activity allows us to experience the local fields and generates a site-specific and dynamic aural landscape.The different shapes and line qualities that make up the algorithmically generated and stencilled drawings come from thinking about the possibilities of extending a line. Fractal mathematics and the research into fractal antennas has focused on reducing the overall size and space an antenna needs to occupy. My interest is in the frequency range at the lower regions of the spectrum, where the wavelength is large; so my interpretation of recent antenna design research has led me to explore the possibilities for drawing antennas that can receive large wavelengths, on something the size of a standard piece of fine art paper.