Скачать или смотреть Reflections on Signals to Noise Loops:Digital Art in Ireland Symposium Presentation by Stephen Roddy

Digital Art in Ireland Symposium in UCC, June 2024, in partnership with Sample-Studios

The Signal to Noise Loops project, applied concepts from the field of cybernetics to the design and development of generative music & art systems as a means of perceptualizing Smart City and Internet of Things (IoT) data. This paper explores some key points in the evolution of the project as it unfolded in a series of performances and installations from 2017 to 2024. The project used of a range of open data from IoT networks based around Dublin City made accessible by Smart Dublin.

The project treats the city as an equal collaborator in the creative process. The city in this regard is represented by the data it produces across its sensor networks. As such the project does not represent a ‘machine-human collaboration’ in the traditional sense. Rather, it began life as a collaboration between the human performer and the city, as mediated by the machines involved. Eventually, as the project evolved and increasing levels of control were relinquished, it became a collaboration between the city and the machine, as mediated by human designers responsible for both.

The first iteration of the project was explored with reference to the concepts of the feedback loop and cellular automata. It explored how both systems can be applied in a generative manner and mapped noise data from a sensor network to drive a generative music system the implemented these ideas. The resulting performance combined human-inthe-loop guitar-based improvisation with data-driven sound manipulation in the context of a live real-time performance.

Iteration two introduced additional data sources (e.g. air pollution and water level measurements etc.) to create more complex musical outputs. The cellular automata were replaced with ‘decision loop’ structures that monitor the inputs of the performer and city respectively and decide how to respond. Musical information was input via Lemur over OSC and synthesised with a wavetable algorithm creating a richer and more intricate musical landscape.

The third iteration integrated further smart city data sources (e.g. pedestrian and vehicular traffic flow, weather data, and emergency warnings). This iteration ceded much more control to the city and it defined increasingly larger proportions of each performance. The performer still inputs musical information as a starting point for the system but the system will always evolve and iterate over these inputs.

The fourth iteration of the systems represented an almost complete surrender of control from the performer. Commissioned during COVID-19, this installation was completely online with no live element and utilized machine learning techniques in the generative music system. Data was also visualized with noise values expressed as changes in the parameters of a dot-matrix map of Dublin City.

Iteration five continued this surrender of authorship. Commissioned for a 2022 festival taking place in the wake of the COVID lockdowns and was designed for mobile and smart devices. It juxtaposed data from during and after the pandemic using an update of the generative music system designed for iteration four, and a new visualisation system. It was followed by iteration 5.1 in 2023 which explored the dissolution of the hybrid digital-physical computing practices that had defined life during the pandemic.