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Re: [microsound] image to sound conversion software



I'm glad that you bring this up.  There are many
"conventional" methods for converting image2sound or
sound2image.  These conventions seem for the most part
to be academic models that are not as concerned with
aesthetic results.
The fact is, all things in the digital realm are a
form of data, and that data is infinitely transposable
and transmutable if you have the right tools for
manipulating it.  Each pixel contains 3 or 4 numbers
(depending on whether it has an alpha channel), which
can be readily used as parameters for any number of
synthesis modules.  If you are using a moving image,
it is perhaps better to analyze the matrix as a whole
to get shifting information in time.  I personally
would avoid the arbitrary results of a pre-fab
software converter.  
I once created a patch that allowed a user to scrub
through an image with a joystick to get parameters
that drove some complex FM synthesis.  This approach
offers a more performative possibility, as you are
using the image as a 3-4 layered map that can be
navigated to mine sounds.

andrew
--- derek holzer <derek@xxxxxxx> wrote:
> I think any discussion of "transcoding" image (or
> other data) into sound 
> has to take into account that such mapping is purely
> subjective. The 
> artistry is in finding meaningful transpositions
> from one medium to 
> another. Using "raw" data as sample values is
> certainly one way, and 
> using an image as spectrographic values for
> resynthesis is certainly 
> another. There are certainly enough softwares out
> there that do either 
> trick, and those sounds are familiar to us from the
> many many artists 
> who have used those softs already (to death in some
> cases). Dig a little 
> deeper and decide for yourself the relationship of
> pixel to sample 
> instead of relying on other people's ready-mades and
> you might be on to 
> something new.
> 
> Anyway, I'll be giving a workshop with Sara Kolster
> on PD and GEM in 
> Bergen Norway next month, and one facet of that
> workshop is the 
> relationship of (moving) image to sound. Emphasis
> will be placed on 
> direct connections between sound and image through
> three different 
> methods: influence of sound on image, influence of
> image on sound and 
> the use of common "control data" for both image and
> sound. Full text has 
> been posted on the Microsound-announce list:
> 
>
http://or8.net/pipermail/microsound-announce/2005-April/000080.html
> 
> derek
> 
> -- 
> derek holzer ::: http://www.umatic.nl
> ---Oblique Strategy # 175:
> "What are the sections sections of? Imagine a
> caterpillar moving"
> 
>
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> 

Andrew Benson
www.cloud-machine.com

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