STATEMENT /
The field of research "Laps" focuses on generating sensible
representations of Internet by using it as a broadcasting space. The
spatial and geographic properties of the Network are
highlighted by broadcasting audio streams that travel and reverberate
trough the web. Listening to these audio streams by using specific
processes* allows to make audible an infinity of transformations that
modify the sound as it circulates on the web. These alterations are
comparable to a form of erosion caused by the network space - they are
a key to allow different mental representations of this digital
topography.
*Very low buffers and no error corrections
PROCESS | A sound is sent out over the network and goes
through several
locations on the web. Captured at the end of a loop by
the original transmitter, the sound is played and then resent out with
no additional modification through the web.
SOUND MATERIAL | To emphasize the changes caused by the
network, the
sound used for the startup is deliberately very simple - pure silence.
SPACE | Similar to a physical & resonant space, the
Internet
network is here used as a broadcasting space where sound gets more
elaborated. The audio signal is modified by the inner properties of the
network and becomes an acoustic signature of this space.
ERRORS | The audio transmission process used here allows
to keep all
the distortions of the original material that occurred during the
process (artefacts, transmission errors, missing data...)
TOPOLOGY | The geography of the network is in perpetual
motion. Web
user's actions have a direct impact on the features of this "resonant
space" - the sound that one can hear through Laps constantly
crystallises the activity of part of the web.
EROSION | As a block of raw material subjected to an
erosion, the
back-and-forth of the sound on the network gradually shape the original
material. The audio stream becomes a real-time sculpture - a potential
acoustic portrait of the network.
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