I started playing around with treating pictures as spectrographs, with time on the x-axis and frequency on the y-axis. I ended up writing a computer program that converts png files to wav files with a good set of options and such. I've found that images with sharp contrasts, and either mostly either black or mostly white (which my program inverts) give the best results. The following recording was made with a rendering of the Mandelbrot set (a fractal):
Mandelbrot.mp3
as usual--it's brilliant.
ReplyDeletecheck out chaos theory in case you already haven't and of course you'll see the lorenz attractor, but then apply it to musical activity. right there i think you'll see/hear some parallels with the minimalists. actually, the first time i heard the minimalists, i thought of einstein, but now i see that they're much more related to an out of shape equilibrium turning into something brand new. that said, you might read judy lochead from new york and see what you think about her analyses. finally, you might check out the old book, art & physics--but that might be a dud. why not read fritjof capra? come on james! capra might be just where you are. start with the turning point and then maybe read marilyn ferguson's the acquarian conspiracy. then maybe morris berman's the reenchantment of the world????