SPECTRA
Through digitisation, human experience has been been reduced to a lower resolution and the multi-sensory experience of the world, flattened to a computer screen. My work aims to present the degradation of digital images and sounds, to present it as otherworldly so we can better facilitate human rootedness in the real world.
Spectral synthesis can turn visual information into sonic information, allowing you to hear images.
When an image is translated into sound, the result is an ear-piercing mesh of tones.
A juxtaposition of these glitched sounds an edited samples produced to imitate features of the image (such as instruments, heartbeat, wind etc.) creates a dichotomy that focusses on how sound is edited to manipulate our experience, as well as how it alienates us from the real world.
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Through videography and Technological advancement, our vision-dominated culture has become quite adept in recording and reproducing images. Every day in our western culture we are exposed to a multitude of inauthentic visual stimuli.
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With Artificial Spectral Synthesis, I can turn any image into a Spectrograph (a detailed waveform of sonic information), A recreation of the image from the sonic information generated, provides a ‘glitched’ or decomposed imitation of the original image. This Broken down image is my vessel for raising the issue of Digital Iconoclasm, presenting how the digitisation of media and life distort our perception of the real. The image is also audible information and as sound is also being digitised and distorted, I create accompanying sound art pieces to the images.
Inspired by Alvin Lucier’s ‘I am sitting in a room’(1969), Karlheinz Stockhausen’s ‘Gesang der Jünglinge’ (1955/56), Pierre Schaeffer’s ‘etude aux chemins de fer (1948), Writings of Juhani Pallasmaa ‘The Eyes of the Skin’ (1996), Oliver Laric's 'Versions' (2010)
Contexts:
Musique Concrete, Iconoclasm, Ocularcentrism, Art in the digital age, Sound Art
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