“It is only with a computer that these images can be created.”
Originally a track by Lambchop ‘What Else Could it Be?’ 2003, is an example of my interest in transformations across media, from audio into digital and digital into visual.
The music has been reinterpreted by assigning colours and tones to the individual bits of musical data that comprise the digital recording.
This is a direct visual reading of a piece of music. The bits of data are laid out following the same conventions as a page of text. The numbers that represent or define the actual sound of the performance are streamed off the recording and individually coloured by value, then layered so that the left and right channels are combined to produce a ‘mono’ rendition of the piece.
It is almost possible to see the main characteristics of the recording enfolding across and down the image. Grand rhythmic passages tend to produce strong contrasting regions and quieter or more uniform sections generate long tonally less diverse strips.
Selecting a suitable width, for the initial recipient picture, enables the main repetitive sections to be stacked vertically down the picture plain. Small errors in quantising cause a distinct ripple effect and the colour interference between the stereo channels can lead to slight phasing or colour shifts.