This canvas visualizes and audifies a collection of data registered in multiple experimental sessions with strip. strip is a piece of software for designing, and experimenting with, feedback relationships in recursive phase modulation sysnthesis. In particular, the dataset was formed on July 7th-9th 2022 when composing the sound installation Trópos. Each record from the dataset (here an example) consists of a 15 seconds long, mono sound recording associated to a set of variables. The set of variables defines a particular configuration of strip that generates the sound file. Essentially, strip is built around two sine oscillators, which recursively cross-modulate each others phase. The way in which this cross-modulation happens is mainly defined by a 6x3 feedback matrix, which is indeed the most relevant piece of information recorded in the dataset.

This canvas contains 97 feedback matrices I designed for Trópos. Each feedback matrix defines both a specific DSP process, and the relationship this process has with its surrounding acoustic environment (through a microphone input). In other words, the 97 matrices represent 97 different sonic characters and their interaction. Each matrix is originally two dimensional (6x3), here represented as one dimensional (18x1). Black corresponds to feedback = 0, yellow to feedback = 1. By clicking on each matrix it is possible to listen to its complementary sonic behavior, as it was captured in the experimental session. It is also possible to simultaneously play back many of them, thus simulating the compositional process of Trópos.

The data plot also visualizes further implicit aspects of the experimental sessions. Each matrix is the rercord of a specific moment of aesthetic individuation: a "snapshot" of a particular feedback configuration that, due to its sensible qualities, I considered aesthetically relevant. These moments are displayed in the canvas chronologically, therefore reading the plot from top to bottom it is possible to observe on which feedback paths I was working, which variables I changed and when, and how my attention was redirected in the process. Obviously this reduced representation cannot capture many aspects of a complex compositional activity, nevertheless the 97 snapshots form a rudimental taxonomy of its most salient moments. Trópos is based on this exact taxonomy, recalling my aesthetic individuations from the past and putting them in relation with the specific here-and-now of the exhibition space.