ON AIR [ sound art installation ]

Hi,

I thought it could be fun to share, this is my first finished work in SuperCollider.

It is called ON AIR, and it’s a large-scale interactive sound installation that involves many kinetic sculptures:

I am using Puredata and Max/MSP too for different time based things, but all sound is produced live in SuperCollider.

The five singing mirrors are each their own battery powered Raspberry Pi Supercollider self-performing instruments which wirelessly receive their score from a leader computer hidden beneath the Horns.

I would like to thank the extremely knowledgable Martin Marier, who I assume is on this forum, as he was a huge help in getting the networked score functioning, as well as with creating the granular instrument which is used all throughout the work.


The audience speaks into the bells of two French horns. Sound is inhaled into an alchemical apparatus. The collected voices become chaotically entangled within the tensile confines of an expanding latex balloon. Trapped inside the captured aether words collide, fragment, and recombine, modulating their contextual and phonetic arrangement. A soundscape of ricocheting voices is perceived, emerging from deep inside the balloon. Over time, the pressure becomes too great and like a sonic capacitor, sound is freed from its reservoir.

The valves open. Airborne voices are forced through a series of reflective steel cornets towards an elastic membrane where mechanically induced friction compels the collected voices to incandesce. Behind the pulsating membrane, an iris opens, slowly releasing the luminous voices towards a series of glass lenses and mirrors. From here follows a five-part choral harmony of mirrors that builds into a final cacophonous performance of rhythm and light.

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