Chromaticaster

Optic-music instrument


Description

Artist: Nourathar Studio

Authors: Caen Botto & Marta Rupérez

Title: Chromaticaster

Date: 2019


Medium: Interactive, optical illusion. Mixed media; LCD screen, computer, Arduino, sound system, wood, lens, perspex, keyboard.

Custom application developed in Max/MSP/Jitter by Caen Botto


Dimensions: · Display: 42,5 (h) x 54,5 (w) x 25 (d) cm

· Keyboard: 3,5 (h) x 47 (w) x 12 (d)

· Speakers: 30,5 (h) x 12 (w) x 12 (d)


Edition: unique within a series of 5



Concept

A new interpretation of light organs which explore different levels of synesthetic correspondences.

The notes on the keyboard are associated with colours and objects that appear in the viewer. These three-dimensional shapes generate the illusion of proceeding from an infinitely distant sound source, they act as a visual representation of the movement of sound through space.

Chromaticaster transforms a classic TV and a keyboard, into an interactive controller of musical & optical illusion.

Historical Light Organs, include Mary Hallock Greenewalt’s Sarabet, where the correspondence between colour & sound depended on the interpreter, or Thomas Wilfred’s Lumia, which presented silent light compositions in motion.