"SonoMorphis", the development of an audiovisual form

With "SonoMorphis" the results of Bernd Lintermann's and Torsten Belschner's investigations of open systems in the field of computer technology are artistically implemented. The installation was developed between 1995 and 1997 without sound as "Morphogenesis" and was finally extended with sound in 1997. The aim was to create an instrument that allows an open compositional structure that only emerges during playing and is neither predictable nor repeatable. The random-based principle of form change allows for more than 1080 combinations of components on the hardware used in 1997, which means an unmanageable space of form and sound. The evolutionary metaphor is used here as a navigation aid, as a technique to surprise the user. The superimposition of image and sound levels creates an open structure, a syntax that can be reconfigured again and again by every viewer.

The visible form elements are selected from an internally stored set of 32 pre-defined components, which in a figurative sense form the so-called "gene pool". In addition to a mathematical description of the shape, surface texture and color information, each component contains additional information about cyclic and random parameter changes as well as information about parameters that can be changed interactively by the viewer. The mathematical descriptions reproduce patterns of form and arrangement borrowed from nature, thus creating a complex organic aesthetic with an inherent visual logic. The components selected by the viewer are arranged in a hierarchical data structure and interpreted by the graphics software as instructions for creating a three-dimensional branched form.

Each component of the gene pool is assigned a sound, which is calculated by a mathematical model while playing. In the sound generation process used, known as physical modelling, the sound is based on a calculable description of the vibrational behaviour of a real body.

Production:
ZKM | Institute for Visual Media, Karlsruhe, DE
ZKM | Institute for Music and Acoustics, Karlsruhe, DE

Production staff
Application software: Bernd Lintermann
Sound: Torsten Belschner
Control unit design and manufacturing: Ulrich Weltner
Textures: Alexander Weiß