liquid space 02: particle lake

authors: Bubblyfish [ usa ] LAb[au]

about

Gameboy music consists of individual, discreet events written into a matrix. These can be interpreted to be analogous to the sonic "grains" in the realm of granular synthesis. Granular synthesis and spatial sound were introduced by Iannis Xenakis in 1958, in his sound installation " PH Concrete". Applying these concepts to "Particle Lake", sound elements can be translated visually into 2D pixels, and moving sounds into voxels (3D pixels). These grains would form a visual and sonic pattern, transformed by energy (loudness) to form "waves", which affect neighboring patterns and create a back and forth, fluid movement.

One of the possibilities in sound synthesis is to work with microsound. Microsound is interesting because they are closely related to digital technologies, digital sound has a sample rate or a number of sound elements per second as granular synthesis is using. Microsound is also related to the history of spatial sound, Xenakis introduced both concepts in his piece "PH concret" intended to be played on 400 speakers installed in the Philips pavilion of 1958 world fair in Brussels. This type of synthesis has its background in "musique concrete" as much as in mathematical constructs which again makes it so close to computer technology.

Furthermore the notion of sound elements can be translated visually into 2D pixels. If the sound elements are localized or moving they can be translated to voxels (3D pixels) or particles. In this case sound would emphasize movements until the point in which you can introduce more than one sound seed then it becomes music. One of the sound channel of a gameboy correspond exactly to this idea,

it's the "noise channel". One thing interesting is how you can morph these sounds/images, music/visuals manipulation becoming almost like manipulating fluid matter. It seems to me that the "space navigable music" software platform and the experience of LAb[au] would be a very good way of achieving this next level into granular synthesis music.