What is the work?

This is an experimental work created by Emily, Sarah, Luka and Amalie. The work is built on the concept that a participant would be sat down in a communal location and using a pen & paper (or digital drawing) would 'follow' passerby's movements creating these linedrawings. These line drawings track the movement and result in a image that can be fed into Virtual ANS synthesiser, which is a digital software that recreates the workings of an ANS synthesiser; a synthesiser that creates sound based on image.THe work expanded on the idea of using the environment to create images, like the nature drawings of HIM. In this work, the participants are the active drawers of the passive subject which is the individuals making up the public who are using the site (Alexandra Square). Here is the projects homepage. You too can participate in the work using the link on that website or altenatively through this site by emailing this address

Technology

Besides the rudimentary technology of pen and paper, the piece uses a software that creates Virtual ANS Synthesiser. The ANS Synthesiser was an instrument created by Yevgeny Murzin, a Russian audio engineer. Murzin's goal was to use a photo-optic method of sound recording, i.e. obtaining a visible image of a sound wave, but revert its principle so that the sound is synthesised from an image. His development of this idea remained a hobby, as he worked predominantly as an engineer in other areas, but as of 1958 Murzin established a laboratory and a band of musicians/engineers to bring to life and actualise the ANS. The ANS used in this piece is Warmplace , a Virtual ANS software simulator. It has all the functions of the original ANS, with extended digital capabilites that wouldn't have been possible in the time of the original- such as uploading images and pictures to create sounds.

Example of an image fed into the synthesiser and the midi-notes it creates from it

Experience

There was a sense of voyeurism when participating in this work, although arguably there were no negative aspects of being the subject of observation in this piece, e.g. no photographs taken without consent, as you traced someones pattern in the space. There was an intimacy in following someones patterns however there was also a distance as the following of the person was just as connected to the individual and to the space we both we inhabiting. The movement tracing began to dictate the common sense paths of spaces and the patterns we all fall into as individual moving about a space. The translation of common paths to sound is super interesting as some of the works began to sound the same as the images fed into the virtual synthesiser followed the same patterns of commuters going about the space. Due to the transcient nature of communiting and the time-consuming process of synthesising the sound, both the active participant and passibe subject have usually left the site, however the lasting material of the object and the produced sounds are left to be traces and monuments of the site.

Here is my personal sketch that I did during the work. With the hustle and bustle of the commuters, it was quite a powerful statement to sit ourselves down on the stairs and demand a space within this fast paced environment to sit down and observe. Especially on campus and a site which is a hub for getting between places, and counting on students often quickly trying to get places to make it on time - the static positioning was mildly intimidating to engage in but because we sat as a big group to do the drawings there was a security in it. Moreover, on the actual act of tracing movement through a space we as the active participants had to find new passive subjects to trace after they went out of the site. For me specifically, I followed multiple different individuals with my drawing which can be seen by where the lines seperate.

Here is my personal drawing synthesised.