A Closer Look at MaterialsSoundMusic

marco diamond

Conceptualized image of an exploration inside a diamond.

The Art + Science Rendezvous at the University of North Texas was a kickoff event for dialogue and collaboration among students, faculty, and the general public. Marco Buongiorno Nardelli’s presentation of his MaterialsSoundMusic project proves interdisciplinary thinking achieves novel outputs.

MaterialsSoundMusic is a “computer-aided, data-driven composition environment based on the sonification and remix of different data streams.” The project takes data from AFLOWLIB, a large material compounds database and interprets the information through interfaces such as MAX, Python, and Ableton Live. The programs transform the selected material to sound. Once a material has been sonified, it can be used to create different data remixes. 

Nardelli gave a few samples of the sonified data, allowing the audience to listen to Carbon and acoustically explore the inside of a diamond. He also played a piece entitled Ricercare, Italian for “research.” The music was derived from the sonification and remix of Silicon, Germanium, Tin and group IVa elements from the periodic table. The flute part was made by mapping data from the previous materials into pitch class sets, an output of the data manipulation algorithm used to sonify the data.

Listen to Ricercare below.

Nardelli’s goal is to engage and educate people on the structure and properties of materials with his sonification methods. The Art + Science Rendezvous is designed to give fascinating works, such as Nardelli’s MaterialsSoundMusic project, a forum to engage the community, spark discussion and set the stage for attendee intra-collaboration. We were very happy to have Marco Buongiorno Nardelli speak at the first rendezvous event and look forward to future events!

Inventions for data streams #2, Ricercare (2015) [4’15”] for flute, player piano, electronics and live data stream.

Listen_marco-nardelli



News@xREZ April 2016 by Lucero Cantu

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