(In)discrete Music: (mis)adventures in generative art

Presented at Still Hacking Anyway (SHA2017), Aug. 7, 2017, 11:45 p.m. (45 minutes)

In which we experiment with generative music, based on chaotic systems and cellular automata. Continuous sounds will be made using discrete systems, and discrete sounds will be made using continuous systems. #Making Discrete systems like one-dimensional cellular automata have been sonified as discrete MIDI notes, but will also be turned into continuous drones through abuse of the short-time Fourier transform via SciPy's signal processing library. This will be also be applied to chaotic bifuracting systems such as the Gauss Map. The annoying complications of sonifying continuous chaotic systems like the Lorenz and Chua attractors properly through analog electronics or the SuperCollider and Csound software will be compared to the annoying effectiveness of doing it badly by expressing them as discrete MIDI notes.

Presenters:

  • Giles Greenway
    Former materials scientist, physics teacher and web-developer, with no formal training in electronic music whatsoever. Your Humble Narrator used to electrocute polyethylene films for a living, before moving on to jabbing them with microscopic points. Applying these techniques to highschool physics students and start-up CTOs was seriously considered. -Now gainfully employed packaging data science and mobile app reversal tools for humanities students. None of this is any preparation for the creation of generative electronic music.

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