A collaboration with Anyways Creative, installed in both NYC and London.

3 Sound and Light Experiences featuring multichannel sound, generative design, and music visualization

For the Physics of Sound installation, we created a volumetric light and sound sculpture with a path through the middle. The piece was built around the song “Eternal” from Holly Herndon’s album, PROTO. Holly gave us the individual elements of her composition which we then used to drive the 3D animation and spatial audio mix. We used 1,720 LED globes and 20 channels of audio to completely surround the audience. Our custom graphics and music software enabled us to synchronize the audio-visual sequence.

Pre-production and commissioning took place at our studio, Future Space

The second installation, Structure of a Song, focused on dissecting a pair of songs into separate layers. A collection of glowing shapes each containing a stem were arranged throughout the room allowing the visitors to physically explore the compositions. The lights pulsed with the amplitude of the sound within. Featured songs were “Rylan” by The National and “Toaster” by slowthai. By isolating the individual components of the arrangements — vocals, drums, synths, bass, etc — the audience could appreciate each dimension in more detail.

Emotion of Music. In this final room we explored the connection between brain wave data and the emotional response created when listening to different types of music. Wearing an EEG headband, visitors could choose a mood – maybe a "sentimental" song from Sampha or a "vulnerable" song from FKA twigs – and as it played, the headband sensed brain wave signals that our software interpreted and animated in real time. A collection of tracks from the Beggars Group catalogue served up a diverse set of artists to choose from.

Credits:

Interactive installation production: Dave and Gabe
Graphic Shader Software Development: Nic Symbios
Agency: Anyways
Label partners: Beggars Group and Method Records
Music artists: Holly Herndon, The National, slowthai, Interpol, Sampha, FKA twigs, Basement Jaxx, Perfume Genius, Kurt Vile, Aldous Harding, Princess Nokia, Velvet Negroni, SOAK, Parquet Courts
Fabrication: GAMMA (NYC), YoungBuk (NYC), Bednark (NYC), Millington Associates (LDN)
Videography: Loroto Productions (NYC), Pavilion (LDN)
Photography: Alan Tansey (NYC), Samuel Morgan Photography (NYC),
Yael Malka (NYC), Khee Siong Tian (LDN)