What is Oscilloscope Music?
Oscilloscope music (also known as vector synthesis) is a unique form of audio-visual art where sounds are used to draw images. What you see is what you hear. The sounds and the images are the exact same thing. You can think of it like an Etch-a-Sketch, but if the knobs could move at the speed of sound. How does this actually work? What even is an oscilloscope? Briefly, An oscilloscope is a machine that shows you how voltages change over time. For computers, music is represented as a voltage that varies over time. Because of this, we can send music to an oscilloscope as well as a pair of speakers. In doing so, the voltages that are making the sounds can be seen on the scope and heard on the speakers simultaneously. There are many ways one can go about designing sounds that also make images, but my tool of choice is usually a program called Pure Data.
Compositions
Improvisations
Installations
Flocking Patterns creates a CRT ecosystem for a small flock of virtual birds. A simple audio synthesizer patched to an oscilloscope draws a flock of birds. It interacts with itself, evolving over time on the screen. By using an analog oscilloscope, an obsolete piece of testing equipment, a dialogue is created with the legacy of the military industrial complex. For example, a green blip on the CRT screen at SAGE, the military’s first nationwide air defense system, would be interpreted as an enemy plane or missile to be shot down. Flocking Pattern’s ecosystem reclaims the technology, bringing attention to the military's influence while creating life on its archaic display. Rather than images on the screen being used as signifiers for a plane or missile to be shot down, the birds on the CRT are alive and well, living inside the scope. Flocking Patterns was originally part SoundPedro's earmaginations segment in 2021.
Digital Harmony
Digital Harmony is a monthly series showcasing my recent expirements, compositions, and improvisations for oscilloscopes. The title is a reference to experimental animator John Whitneys book of the same name. New works are uploaded at the end of every month