About When We Collide

A Generative and Collaborative Sound Installation

Abstract

The idea for When We Collide sprang from Douglas Hofstader’s metaphor of creativity as the meeting between records and record players, appearing in his 1979 book "Gödel, Escher, Bach: An Eternal Golden Braid". In our case, the records are soundfiles, whilst the record player is a generative system. The player analyses, selects, mixes, transforms, and spatialises the material created by the composers (monophonic and quadraphonic soundfiles). The system negotiates between algorithms that tend towards monotony (in terms of loudness, spatialisation, and frequency spectrum) and algorithms that tend towards variability (in terms of soundfiles, transformations, and scenes). In a nutshell, the installation is a space where sonic ideas collide and co-exist.