Simple Harmonic Motion study #3a 

(2011) 

by Mehmet Akten is another study in simple harmonic motion and the nature of complex patterns created from the interaction of multilayered rhythms.

Here 180 balls are bouncing attached to (invisible) springs, each with a steady speed, but slightly different to its neighbour. Sound is triggered when they hit the floor, the pitch of the sound proportional to the frequency of the oscillation. The total loop cycle duration of the system is exactly 6 minutes.

Visuals made with Cinema4D + COFFEE (a C-like scripting language for C4D), audio with SuperCollider.

 

Source: Mehmet Akten on Vimeo

 

 

Simple Harmonic Motion study #3a, super collider, kugeln, london, Code

Reading

Grid Index (2009) by Carsten Nicolai is the first comprehensive visual lexicon of patterns and grid systems. Based upon years of research, artist and musician Carsten Nicolai has discovered and unlocked the visual code for visual systems into a systematic equation of grids and patterns. The accompanying CD contains all of the grids and patterns featured in the publication from the simplest grids made up entirely of squares to the most complex irregular ones with infinitely unpredictable patterns of growth, as editable vector graphic data files. (Gestalten)

Synesthesia: A Union of the Senses (2002) by Richard E. Cytowic disposes of earlier criticisms that the phenomenon cannot be real, demonstrating that it is indeed brain-based. Following a historical introduction, Cytowic lays out the phenomenology of synesthesia in detail and gives criteria for clinical diagnosis and an objective test of genuineness. (MIT Press)

Notation. Calculation and Form in the Arts (2008) is a comprehensive catalogue (in German) edited by Dieter Appelt, Hubertus von Amelunxen and Peter Weibel which accompanied an exhibition of the same name at the Academy of the Arts, Berlin and the ZKM | Karlsruhe. (ZKM)

 

SEE ALSO

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RedUniverse (2007) by Mark d'Inverno and Fredrik Olofsson. This is basically a set of tools for sonification and visualisation of dynamic systems. It lets us build and experiment with systems as they are running. With the help of these tools we can quickly try out ideas around simple audiovisual mappings, as well as code very complex agents with strange behaviours. (Fredrik Olofsson)

Brian O'Reilly is the creator of various works for moving images, electronic/noise music, mixed media collage, installation, and is a contrabassist, focusing on the integration of electronic treatments and extended playing techniques. (Brian O'Reilly on Vimeo)

Ström (2008) by Mattias Petersson (music) and Fredrik Olofsson (video) is, in its full version, a 45-minute minimalistic piece for five loudspeakers, live-electronics and live-video, based on an open-minded, artistic approach towards electricity. The piece is an attempt to transfer electric currents via sound to the audience. The five speakers in the surround system struggles to take over the sonic stream like electro-magnets. Sine waves and noise rotates with breakneck speeds around the listeners, tries to charge them with static electricity and, as an ultimate goal, even make them levitate.(Mattias Petersson)

Art That Moves: The Work of Len Lye (2009) by Roger Horrocks, author of the best-selling and critically acclaimed 2001 Len Lye: A biography, shifts the focus from Len Lye's life to his art practice and innovative aesthetic theories about "the art of motion," which continue to be relevant today. Going beyond a general introduction to Len Lye and his artistic importance, this in-depth book offers a detailed study of his aesthetics of motion, analyzing how these theories were embodied in his sculptures and films. (Amazon)