Output details

Turbulence

Turbulence is an audiovisual artwork by artist Alison Clifford and composer Graeme Truslove; it is the fourth work in the Interstitial Articulations series exploring aspects of the interstitial through collaboration. Turbulence combines findings and methods from earlier works in the series to create a work that embodies ideas of the interstitial in terms of the aesthetic approach and the technological processes used to communicate between audio and visual.

In Turbulence, Clifford translates abstract light-forms in the source photograph into moving image fragments that represent different layers in the audio. These were constructed using a combination of techniques: particle systems in Maya (3D software) were used to create the slower moving background forms, whilst the frenetic foreground activity in the audio was represented by tubular forms animated using dynamics (specifically Maya’s wind simulations).

The audio is an extract from an acousmatic work, composed using techniques common to microsound composition. In previous works in the series, visual elements were constructed then matched to elements present in the audio. With Turbulence however, by means of a custom-built software interface created with Max/MSP, the audio drives motion through the visual material, forming synchretic (Chion) relationships between sound and image.

The final work consists of a montage of these different responses from the interface, combined and edited together with more deliberate ‘human’ responses linking audio and visual. It is through the interaction between human and computer responses that new interstitial aesthetic possibilities for audiovisual art are proposed.

Turbulence was exhibited at the third Seeing Sound event at Bath Spa University, alongside screenings of the work of visual music pioneers, John and James Whitney.