Body as Audible Instrument within Sonic Composition

Freq2, by Squidsoup, uses your whole body to control the precise nature of a sound – a form of musical instrument. The mechanism used is to trace the outline of a person’s shadow, using a webcam, and transform this line into an audible sound. Any sound can be described as a waveform – essentially a line – and so these lines can be derived from one’s shadow. What you see is literally what you hear, as the drawn wave is immediately audible as a realtime dynamic drone.

Freq2 adds to this experience by adding a temporal component to the mix; a sonic composition in which to frame the instrument. The visuals, an abstract 3-dimensional landscape, extrudes in realtime into the distance, leaving a trail of the interactions that have occurred. This ‘memory’ of what has gone before is reflected in the sounds, with long loops echoing passed interactions. The sounds, all generated in realtime from the live waveform, have also been built into more of a compositional soundscape, with the waveform being played at a range of pitches and with a rhythmic component.
Watch video. Freq2 was commissioned for Cybersonica 06 and shown, as part of Cybersonica 06, at various venues across the UK including Tate Britain, Dana Centre, Phonica and b-tween (National Museum of Photography, Film and Television). More from Squidsoup: Altzero, Come Closer, Doodle. More from Cybersonica 06. [blogged by Chris on Pixelsumo]