I've found that it's virtually impossible to create an ugly song. You can enter a whole slew of notes completely at random and wind up with a nice mix of chords, interplay, and syncopation. I've entered designs, blocks, letters, figures from Conway's Life. Each one has a unique song that's surprisingly euphonious (and, perhaps unsurprisingly, monotonous).
Curious about the photographic implications, I began playing around with b/w square photographs as the root of my designs. The first was Nancy Rexroth's A Woman's Bed, Logan, Ohio, 1970:
![](https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgFKI9EjyICAkX8FB_Cn73SZbnowK5mEm67wIckHrZVOOLqcuhOihGdc4sGxAlDxjKavvvd6TblN6kqAl6KCDpB4_YGbWWZ3E-md4pc91DmghMvnfr3bX8EOuXPPdQPsukljYwPnnSv4HqB/s400/Rexrothiowasm.jpg)
I converted the image into a 16 x 16 pixel array...
![](https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhx0LQDMii_VkOZpM6EHDhTCtlzli-e01zZPyxCys83DbvWHgubeaEeB04gEwNdZN6teDXNU9hNCUEL3cFlhzm5LLyTZzYO7XFB7CIi164ePolREabj7k1K14763k0rfmaLQjGT5yFt2ox-/s400/rexrothgrey.jpg)
Saved it as a two color gif...
![](https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEje4pEA6NdKF0t_QbNo3I3Wf5RrS5vAXK17WewbZLZam5pzrAcrZKUeCKaNlxFcwFrddU0qcSMW4E3ghniyvIUPHQzVYp1I3qBUCNbeWoDO6j2wCN7E5hnNTw8XJ6MkRAqyEPrSwSlfQ7qp/s400/rexrothbiggif.gif)
Then copied the pattern into Tonematrix...
![](https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgcJPBws_8FRfHQSMTwvtzFNyRbSMpK2kuAQG2jwKf3mfrPI-KsTAoA6ie759y4v472N0rhl4aaaUUqb68rRyUN3YPWFA3WQ4K7sorpp1RnZK5bsKaBe9KndbRa-HsxbBZa9oCUATKZ_yvE/s400/rexrothscreengrabsm.jpg)
Here's what it sounds like:
Next up was Arbus' Young Brooklyn Family Going for a Sunday Outing, 1966:
Harry Callahan's Eleanor, 1949:
Irving Penn's Portrait of Truman Capote, 1965:
As you can hear, each image generates its own song which isn't quite the same as any other. I think they're a bit like audio fingerprints or whale songs uniquely keyed to the individual.
Beyond that fact I'm not sure what significance they may have. I thought about creating a quiz in which I'd have people guess an image after hearing its song but quickly realized it would be impossible to solve. For color photographs I can imagine other possibilities like a 3D graph with color representing multiple instruments across the z axis.
I think perhaps these audio clips are best appreciated as bizarre little experiments just weird enough to be of general interest.
5 comments:
Wow, so interesting!!
I will go and check what music my pics make!!!
Blake, you freakin' rule, man!
ahi ah
OMG...I'm hooked...the strange thing is I was just looking at QR codes last night.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/QR_Code
Freaky...QR Code Music
That is interesting stuff. It is more a musical transcription of a visual information though (rather than a transformation), not unlike a music sheet is. But that is an interesting effort.
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