HARMONICS [IMAGE GENERATED SOUNDS]
Bar Charts from [4.0 and 5.0] and the resulting images [from 6.0 The Gallery] are scanned to generate sound, revealing some interesting relationships between the harmonics of the digital [“Music of the spheres”], visual and aural experiences of our phenomenal world [including the man-made].
A full “Score” is also shown based on the reduced Fibonacci and the Lucas derivatives.
Some of this material forms the basis [produced by the band “Blur”] of the first message to be played back to Earth from Mars by the British Beagle Mars Lander in 2003!
Image Generated Sound

Sound Generated Images

Form
Generated by vibrating powder [similar to the
underside of a Cowrie Shell]
from "Cymatics"
by Hans Jenny Basle 1967

"Good Vibrations"
different notes create different patterns in
powder on the skins of kettle drums.
I chose to use number as a starting point even though I felt that there may be deeper structures awaiting discovery that are inaccessible to number alone . But, I soon found that true to form number was to reveal a tantalising glimpse of that deep structure from within its own structure.
This was not surprising. Number is after all the fundamental element of perhaps our most powerful aid to model making, mathematics, whose abstract and self generating nature enables us to interrelate superficially dissimilar phenomena, to see common patterns buried in the structures of our interest and by application of the rules of its game watch them procreate, to feedback fresh insights or confirm the direction for further explorations of symmetry, broken symmetry and self similarity at the living edge of chaos.
Initially, I chose to constrain my use
of number to the digits. This followed the
exploration of Vedic Mathematics
of ancient
India referred to above.
The Rules:
* The
Digits 0, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8 and 9.
*
Reduction: To restrain the model when exploring
larger numbers [ie composed of more than one
digit]
the number is reduced by adding the
digits together e.g. 144 is then read as 1+4+4
which = 9.
* Colour: To enhance the
relationships between numbers and their different
functions and qualities,
each number is given
a colour. The colours chosen are
Cyan[1],
Blue[2], light Grey[3], Magenta[4], Green[5], mid
Grey[6], Yellow[7], Red[8] and Black[9].
This
produces three triads, the three additive
primaries 1,4 and 7, the three subtractive
secondariness 2,5 and 8
and three neutrals 3,6
and 9.
* Transformations - To adhere to the
Laws of Symmetry [ ie Translation*, Rotation,
Reflection and Dilation]
and to retain any
other inherent structural principles should they
appear [ie Self similarity, Harmonics,
Form
Generated by vibrating Wavelength, Amplitude
etc.], whatever the chosen transformation, across
number, source material or mode
of operation
[ie numeric, visual [in two and three dimensions],
aural [and in time, a fourth dimension], animation
etc.].
* Exemplars - The Prints demonstrate
that playing [and sticking!] to the “Rules of the
Game” will generate rich,
complex and
evocative behaviour/forms that give us some
insight into the way We, Nature and the Cosmos
create such diversity from such essentially
simple elements.
And Sound generated by
scanning the number series as bar chart or
image carries the analogies further.
Heard
independently or in association with the images,
the sounds and their scores reinforce the argument
and add the further dimension of time, of
temporal insight into the nature of harmonics.