Audiovisual Performance
"Into Our Sun"

In cooperation with ONB Labs a feedback system to translate a set of metadata from scans of historic newspapers with over 1 million IDs was developed and transferred into the audio-visual domain. Only the parameters ‘width‘ and ‘height‘ of the scans were used, while all other metadata was omitted. The focus on the items’ quality/exactness of representation (number of pixels), while abandoning the actual representation, could be conceived as a reflection on how one perceives, thus interprets and creates, history.

"Into our Sun" by artist Thomas Wagensommerer was initially shown as an audio-visual performance at the launch event of ONB Labs. Translating metadata from more than 1 million historic newspaper scans, he focused on the parameters of resolution. The documentation as video and soundfiles, the processing patch and the patches created in Reaktor and Ableton Live are published under copy left and are a courtesy by the artist.

Tools

Tools used to generate sound and visuals

DescriptionLink

Processing

Open source programming language and integrated development environment

https://processing.org

Native Instruments Reaktor

Closed source audio software

https://www.native-instruments.com

Ableton Live

Closed source audio software

https://www.ableton.com

Data sets

The subset of the metadata of our historic newspapers used in the AV performance

DescriptionLink

Metadata Historic Newspapers

Subset of page based metadata (height and width, dataset 1 to 1M)

BZ2 GZ ZIP

Downloads

Used data is in the public domain. Generated code is MIT licensed.

DescriptionLink

Complete Audio Project

Reaktor ensemble, used audio samples, Ableton project

git BZ2 GZ ZIP

Reaktor Ensemble

ENS

Complete Video Project

Processing patch, used metadata

git BZ2 GZ ZIP

Processing Patch

PDE