generative audio-visual Installation
TouchDesigner / Max MSP
Total installation runtime: approximately 8 min
URSUPPE creates a space in which analog raw material is infinitely reassembled by an algorithm, striving for an higher order. The basic elements: archaic animation sequences, scratched directly onto film material and experimental orchestra sounds - both composed following a predefined modular vocabulary, resulting in points, lines, particles and transients, timbres, textures. The material is being dissected, distorted, stretched, repeated, contrasted and rearranged by an algorithm - unpredictable and in realtime. When all forms are dissolved, who establishes the context, the artists? The machine, or the mind of the viewer?
The visual raw material consists of animation sequences that have been scratched onto overexposed 35mm film material, while the musical elements feature modularly composed orchestra scores, recorded by the Filmorchester Babelsberg. The process of recomposition is performed by an algorithm whose decisions are determined by reading the genome of an Archaeon, a single-celled organism which is regarded to be one of the most basic and ancient life forms on earth. As the deciphering of the genetic code starts at random positions each run-through, every interpretation of the genome results in a different audio-visual output. Running through several evolutionary stages, the composition of the material evolves from order to chaos. With the algorithm gradually synthesizing and dissolving the audiovisual content, it reinterprets the material in search for a new and higher order.
The visual material is being separately projected on three layers of semi-transparent canvas, unveiling the compositional process and leaving the choice of perspective to the viewer, while the musical counterparts are spatialized through a 4 channel audio setup.
by
Justin Robinson: Concept + Music
Sophia Schönborn: Concept + Animation
Simon Stimberg: Concept + Algorithm