Project: Visual Babble

MFA work: 2005

This series of work consists of compositions created out of varied visual assets, metaphoric and symbolic, and algorithmic structures defined by noise levels contained within an environment. The project is both static, with printed compositions, and dynamic, as a self-evolving interactive presentation.

Babble's creative goal is to develop a series of artistic reactions that exploit the use of sound generated by an individual, multiple people, environmental conditions, or myself as performer. The assets, visual language, contained within the projects defined perimeters are pre-defined by my own hand prior to the execution of the engine or application. The application's algorithms are, as also with the visual, pre-defined prior to processing new compositions. Contained within the algorithm is a conditional variable of which is defined by, as stated prior to here, sound/noise.

Without conditional variables the history of art would be incomplete. Historically artists have worked with variable "uncontrollable" media; Jackson Pollock, for example, was not only flicking his wrist and splashing his paint against the canvas below his feet but also playing with the science of gravity, friction and speed. These variables assisted Pollock in the implementation of this work. John Cage is another artist whose work was strongly influenced by chance, in this case sound. Cage's experiments included the delivery of "silent" compositions where the noises of the audience became the composition.

This series, Babble, is shown primarily as a historic time capsule of the projects execution. The renditions are exports of the project, directly printed so not to alter or interfere in the translation of the visual marks. Babble has brought me to a new place within my work. Working with a media set to an unstable variable, such as sound, I have been able to release myself from the entirely structured. As a designer I work primarily in a world of grids and hierarchies, while Babble is almost completely the opposite. Although the process is rigid in its coding, it is free in form.

Curriculum Vitae (PDFs)

• Artist Résumé: including exhibitions and reviews
• Freelance & Design: design related experience
• CV (Long): teaching, exhibition and employment history