Developed as my graduation project in Visual Communication at the Pontifical Catholic University of Rio de Janeiro.
Beginning as a research paper on design and the boundaries of perception, the absorption of concepts presented by modern free-thinkers such as Paul D. Miller - a.k.a. DJ Spooky - and the dissection of the creative processes of John Cage and Jackson Pollock slowly began to change the project’s focus to more experimental grounds. Ultimately, the whole process became an inter-media experiment on the relationship between image and sound. The starting point was a short abstract story written as a stream of consciousness and later separated into three main scenes. Each scene was then associated with a few objects to further represent its mood and environment. The sounds of these objects were subsequently recorded and then mixed by Pedro Oliveira to create three soundscapes expressing each moment.
The next step was to write a script capable of analyzing live sound data and translating it into image data. After a few attempts with AS3 i finally decided the best option was to use Processing, an open-source programming language. The final script retrieves the audio data from an ipod connected to the computer, creates a square grid inside the main area and moves pixels from one coordinate to another. Each point's initial and final destination, as well as the amount of visual noise it generates while active, depend on the audio data input.
SILENCIO prints were exhibited at the Nederlands Fotomuseum in Rotterdam, Netherlands, from May 31st 2009 to September 27th 2009, as part of the Brazil Contemporary exhibition.
Download the sound files: Carillon | Brezza | Qui
