'Spam' (NOISE <> SIGNAL)

‘Spam’ is part of a larger enquiry (titled NOISE < > SIGNAL) that borrows the term isomorphism from the field of mathematics: a translation or mapping of one form to another via a numeric equation or algorithm, resulting in structurally identical (though abstracted) outcomes, with no loss or gain of information. In this case, isomorphic mappings using unwanted texts are explored, with algorithms and equations taking place within a convergence of text and sound.

For ‘Spam’, a custom software applications sources, collates and translates spam emails into self-creating real-time acousmatic ‘textscapes’.

NOISE < > SIGNAL attempts to question the position of the designer within inter-media works, moving toward a role of designer as technician rather than creator, through the manufacturing of design templates and rules which produce the work within defined extents, rather than producing the work itself. In addition, they are attempts to give a creative voice to largely silent, invisible or static information, liberating it with an authorial role, making decisions about how, when, and what is created.

The works are not intended as aesthetic exercises, but the experiences of taking a text and sending it through a process to open it up and re-shape it — an isomorphism — seeking to challenge our connections with everyday information, translating the undesirable into something desirable, or vice versa.

Sample capture, 3’02

— php, applescript, PD, ableton live 8