Sound and voltage join forces in Protrude Flow, an exhibit set to premiere at Siggraph in August. To conjure spike-filled noisescapes like the one pictured at left, Sachiko Kodama and collaborator Minako Takeno from Tokyo's University of Electro-Communications hang a microphone from the ceiling of an installation room and record ambient noise, including viewers' voices and footsteps. The frequencies are then relayed to a computer that converts the audio into electro-magnetic signals. The louder the sound, the higher the charges of the magnets inside the acrylic tank. A molasses-like mixture of oil, iso-paraffin, and superfine ferro-magnetic powder pulses, vibrates, and mutates to the beat. "With the computer," says Kodama, "it happened that the fluid itself began to live, and started to move like a creature."
ELECTRIC WORD
Freeze-O-Matic
Liquid Audio
Welcome To The Cubicle Dome
Flesh For Fantasy
Beam Therapy
Bugs That Scale
Going With The Flow
