Granular Synthesis

Christian mentioned this in the group meeting the other day, I got the gist of what he said, but looked into it a little more - it's a confusing thing to explain ... try rewording this... 

" Granular synthesis is a basic sound synthesis method that operates on the microsound time scale. It is often based on the same principles as sampling but often includes analog technology. The samples are not used directly however, they are split in small pieces of around 1 to 50 ms in length, or the synthesized sounds are very short. These small pieces are called grains. Multiple grains may be layered on top of each other all playing at different speed, phase, volume, and pitch.

The result is no single tone, but a soundscape, often a cloud, that is subject to manipulation in a way unlike any natural sound and also unlike the sounds produced by most other synthesis techniques. " [wikipedia]

The sound turns out something like this ... 







So... apply that idea to an image sequence, and this is what you get ! 




"Granular Synthesis - Modell 5 shown at the STRP festival 4-4-2009 (fragment)
Eindhoven, Netherlands
MODELL 5 is an installation that manipulates the face of Japanese performer Akemi Takeya. The result is a cyborg hybrid, a cross between human and machine. Viewers follow the lives of the four clones on giant screens spanning 18 x 6 metres.
http://www.granularsynthesis.info/
http://www.strp.nl/ "

Thrilling stuff!


I love the effect - it's that process of the movement, the being able to see each photo, but the speed of the sequence tricking your mind to seeing something moving, even though it's completely randomly assembled.


This will definitely be revisited..