Sound Matters is a series of digital objects molded by sampled ambient sounds, that offers a look into the complexity of omnipresent events that surround us.
Concept and art direction by Marino Capitanio
A departing freight train
Cannon beach
Water by the piers
Birds in the park
The ocean shore
The neighborhood
The artwork was triggered by the desire to rediscover and repurpose sounds we take for granted and often disregard, and converting them into images that aim to trigger in others the same rediscovery feeling. Each piece starts from the ambient sound we sampled in each location. We then process each recording to extrapolate its abundance of details — from thin air to an element that did not exist before, yet is entirely influenced by something we are constantly immersed in.
Sound Matters is about contemplating the richness of ambient sound. A precious element, for you to explore with your eyes.
The process
Once the sampling of the sound is done, the recording is processed with a Max/MSP patch that generates squared images from level values of the audio samples. The resulting images are taken then on Cinema 4D as procedural texture for the base stone 3D model.
All recordings are done by the artists with a Zoom H4N at 44.100 Hz and cut to a 25” length. Samples are then processed with a Max/MSP patch to create squared texture images for Cinema 4D.
The patch collects the absolute value of the waveform amplitude for any given sample and multiplies it by a constant to obtain the output color which will range from black if the amplitude is 0, to white if 1.
All generated white levels are then printed in squared cells arranged in vertical lines, going from top to bottom and proceeding towards the right creating the final texture image consisting of 1,102,500 values.
In Cinema 4D the MAX/MSP output is applied as a procedural texture over a globular model. The cells are used as a heightmap to displace the actual geometric position of points over the textured surface. The primary mesh is physically displaced by the waveform amplitude and the highest values are adopted as a falloff map and marked by a different shader.
Why this project
Sound Matters is a tribute to sounds. Those that are lost, the ones we pay no attention to, or the ones simply ignored.
The project presents a few moments in time stored in a physical shape, creating a medium made by time and space, which offers an alternative way to travel back to those sounds. This conversion, from intangible into a shape with strong physical qualities and presence, aims to bring awareness to the richness of common ambient sound.
Each piece offers a unique visualization. These stones are a landscape that you can explore with your eyes. They offer a unique look inside the sound captured in that place and yet, somehow they themselves are the place. Sampled sounds are presented as samples of matter.
THANK YOU FOR VISITING
•
THANK YOU FOR VISITING •