Articles

How An Audio-Visual Instrument Can Foster The Sonic Experience


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Live Visuals, Leonardo Electronic Almanac, Volume 19 Issue 3

ISBN: 978-1-906897-22-2
ISSN: 1071-4391

Volume Editors: Lanfranco Aceti, Steve Gibson and Stefan Müller Arisona
Editor: Ozden Sahin

How An Audio-Visual Instrument Can Foster The Sonic Experience
by Adriana Sa

The text formulates an understanding of how an audio-visual instrument can be composed in such a way that the experience is driven through sound organization – modulated, but not obfuscated, by a moving image. This is particularly challenging, as normally the audio-visual relationship is skewed in favor of the visual. The investigation is motivated by insights derived from artistic practice. It outlines psychophysical boundaries with the aid of existing cognition/ attention research, and it describes three principles for the creation audio-visual instruments. As an example, the article describes how they are explored in a specific audio-visual instrument, combining an acoustic zither and modified software from audio processing and video-game technologies. This instrument addresses the three principles while exploring the disparities between an acoustic and a digital output.

Full article is available for download as a pdf here.

Volume 19 Issue 3 of Leonardo Electronic Almanac (LEA) is published online as a free PDF but will also be rolled out as Amazon Print on Demand and will be available on iTunes, iPad, Kindle and other e-publishing outlets.