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AURAL
AUTOMATA 5 | GENERATIVE ALIEN LANDSCAPE
This generative process is designed to simulate an alien landscape. No one knows what the floating triangles represent.
The soundscape is based on samples taken from the Japan House and Meadowbrook Park in Urbana, IL. They are treated, using the Web Audio API, with reverb effects to create a sense of distance. The volume of the various sound sources shift randomly across time. The playback rate of some of the samples is also manipulated in real time to help create an unfamiliar, other-worldly quality to the sounds. Nonetheless, all the samples, in their original form, are natural (e.g., birds, crickets, wind, leaves).
The curves of the landscape are created using statistical models for trait-state processes in personality psychology. That is, there is a common value (trait value) with random deviations (state-level perturbations) around that value at each iteration. The randomness, however, has autoregressive properties, which prevents the randomness from being
too random. The time series is folded in on itself to facilitate continuous looping. Parallax effects are enabled by allowing the display band of the most distant curve to be larger than those more proximate. The alien sun is concealed when it dips below the horizon.
Both the aural and visual patterns are generative: They are created in real-time via algorithmic processes, using Web Audio API and JavaScript. The patterns will never repeat themselves exactly, although the gist of each will be familiar across different runs. Refresh the browser page to create a new random set. The scripts are processor-intensive; they may not function well on older machines or mobile devices.
R. Chris Fraley
2017 August 2
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