Dataphile
“The inquisitive artist, on finding a technology that is new to him or her…..sets out to see how it works and discovers the boundaries and limitations of the device. What can this tool do, and how can i use it in a way that may not have been originally intended?….In this process we find new ways of performing or ways of producing new and unique sounds” - Kelly, Caleb - Cracked Media, MIT Press (2009)
The Dataphile project is intended as an investigation into the creative potential of “data bending” as an act of audio creation and an attempt to reveal the nature and possibilities of the everyday file formats that we now accept as standard. The process of data bending involves either the intentional disruption of data within a file to create spontaneous and unpredictable audio artefacts or, more commonly, the re-interpretation of a data file from one medium to another in order to generate visual art or sound.
The intention of this project is to highlight how the current digital culture and the progress of technology has almost completely reduced all forms of art into the intangible zeros and ones of data formats. All data within a computer has become essentially the same and fundamentally it is only the codecs within the software packages that allow us to see or hear the art as the artist intended. However, as artists we now have the ability to re-interpret this data in other ways and subvert the original intention of the data to create new artistic material.
“The inquisitive artist, on finding a technology that is new to him or her…..sets out to see how it works and discovers the boundaries and limitations of the device. What can this tool do, and how can i use it in a way that may not have been originally intended?….In this process we find new ways of performing or ways of producing new and unique sounds” - Kelly, Caleb - Cracked Media, MIT Press (2009)
The Dataphile project is intended as an investigation into the creative potential of “data bending” as an act of audio creation and an attempt to reveal the nature and possibilities of the everyday file formats that we now accept as standard. The process of data bending involves either the intentional disruption of data within a file to create spontaneous and unpredictable audio artefacts or, more commonly, the re-interpretation of a data file from one medium to another in order to generate visual art or sound.
The intention of this project is to highlight how the current digital culture and the progress of technology has almost completely reduced all forms of art into the intangible zeros and ones of data formats. All data within a computer has become essentially the same and fundamentally it is only the codecs within the software packages that allow us to see or hear the art as the artist intended. However, as artists we now have the ability to re-interpret this data in other ways and subvert the original intention of the data to create new artistic material.
After a period of extensive testing is was decided that the final audio material for the project would be created using the reinterpretation of image data. At this point a number of photographers (Jonathan Stevenson, sound artist Riz Maslen of Neotropic and Emma-Jane Falconer) were contacted to provide high quality uncompressed digital images for the re-interpretation process.
a) The first stage was to data bend the images into audio format. Each file was converted in 3 formats - .PSD, .BMP and .RAW (where available). The most sonically interesting versions where then opened into Logic 9. A very minimal amount of sequencing was applied to the files in order that the structure, spatialisation and length of the tracks remained true to the original image data.
b) The second stage involved creating a number of duplicate tracks of the original material and applying careful filtering to each track of audio in order to reveal the hidden layers, interesting frequencies and nuances of the audio material. In some ways this process mirrors the artistic technique of Décollage.
c) Post processing and effects on the final audio material was kept to a minimum, but in order to differentiate the work from other artists who have presented this kind of clinical digital material, it was decided to use a variety of reverb effects on the material.
The final project is presented as a 9 track compact disk of the most effective pieces created in the project. The disc is presented in a DVD sized case with an accompanying booklet that displays the images used and a rough outline of the technical process (the cover art of the booklet is one of the audio tracks from the CD re-interpreted as image data). The ordering of the CD moves from the more fragmentary rhythmic material through to the longer drone based pieces finishing with the final 10 minute sections that explores the more uncomfortable outer limits of the frequencies created through techniques.
a) The first stage was to data bend the images into audio format. Each file was converted in 3 formats - .PSD, .BMP and .RAW (where available). The most sonically interesting versions where then opened into Logic 9. A very minimal amount of sequencing was applied to the files in order that the structure, spatialisation and length of the tracks remained true to the original image data.
b) The second stage involved creating a number of duplicate tracks of the original material and applying careful filtering to each track of audio in order to reveal the hidden layers, interesting frequencies and nuances of the audio material. In some ways this process mirrors the artistic technique of Décollage.
c) Post processing and effects on the final audio material was kept to a minimum, but in order to differentiate the work from other artists who have presented this kind of clinical digital material, it was decided to use a variety of reverb effects on the material.
The final project is presented as a 9 track compact disk of the most effective pieces created in the project. The disc is presented in a DVD sized case with an accompanying booklet that displays the images used and a rough outline of the technical process (the cover art of the booklet is one of the audio tracks from the CD re-interpreted as image data). The ordering of the CD moves from the more fragmentary rhythmic material through to the longer drone based pieces finishing with the final 10 minute sections that explores the more uncomfortable outer limits of the frequencies created through techniques.
An audio visual installation version of the project was displayed at the Sidney Cooper Gallery, Canterbury, Kent between April - May 2012
