[ISEA97] Artists Statement: Stuart Ramsden & David Worrall – Resonant Silhouettes of Poincare

Artists Statement

This highly interactive work, using realtime digital feedback algorithms in the image and sound domain, encourages the audience to explore a complex process of sonic and luminous flux: a continuous synthesis of image and sound folding back into itself, hovering on the boundary between order and chaos. Interacting with the work allows the audience to explore an endless variety of complex and unique visual and aural forms. The work is a homage to Poincare (1854-1912), one of the early mathematical pioneering explorers of chaos and feedback. He asserted that the aesthetic rather than the logical is the dominant element in mathematical creativity. In an age before computers, his work on celestial mechanics led him to discover the first description of chaotic limit sets in history. He visualized complex chaotic processes in his head, and even expressed the fear that these might defy analysis forever. Software: Custom code in C++ and Inventor. CSOUND synthesis software. Hardware: SGI workstation with Impact Graphics. HiFi sound system.

  • Stuart Ramsden (Australia) is computer animator (b.1964) and is currently Lecturer in Computer Animation at the Australian Centre for the Arts and Technology (ACAT, Australian National University). He has produced a variety of works ranging from realtime performance animation to procedural modelling and animation.
  • David Worrall (Australia) is composer (b.1954) and Head of ACAT. While he has written music in most genres, his areas of special inter­est are algorithmic composition, polymedia and spatial sound synthesis.