/Radius_Music

Alternative Interfaces | Composition | Minimalist Music | Repetition | Arduino | Processing | Pure Data

Inspired by the new vocabulary of sound made available by electronic instruments pioneered by the minimalist composers since the 1950s, Radius Music reflects on themes of repetition, randomness, graphic scores, and systems art.

Central to the piece is an arduino-powered revolving distance sensor, which as it scans the room, samples the position of people and objects in the space. This data is sent to a pure data patch, that emits tones whose pitches are relative to the distance between the device and the secondary object. The composition itself is potentially infinite as it is based on the idea of the circle: we hear loops or samples that dynamically change in response to the spacial conditions of the environment. When there is nobody around to alter these conditions, the piece will read the distance of the boundaries of the space, and repeat itself until switched off.

To correspond with the sonic composition, the distance values are interpreted visually and are projected downwards around the device. For every distance value measured, a point is drawn on the visualisation at a scaled radial distance. Thicker white lines suggest an object that has remained static for some time, perhaps a wall or a person who stopped to watch and listen to the piece. Over time, a general map of the room emerges from the visualisation, and the paths that people took through the space. As a result, we are presented with a durational map of the space - the graphic score for the composition being performed. As people walk in and out of the room that these devices will be placed in, they will alter the readings of distance, and therefore, the sounds too.

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