Description of Social Sounds - A Sound Art Installation based on theory of coupled nonlinear oscillators

The idea behind this work has been to create a sound art installation that (I) works as a metaphor for social behavior and (II) explore the concept of entrainment as a basis for creating rhythm-based abstract music.

The initial inspiration for this work was the synchronization process that takes place in a group of singing frogs: frogs tend to synchronize their singing to surrounding frogs singing. Similarly, fireflies synchronize their illumination to surrounding fireflies, and crickets synchronize their chirping, etc. Also, human social behavior appears to have many similarities to the way frogs synchronize their singing; people's tendency to adopt their behavior to their surroundings emerges in many situations, and may lead to phenomenon such as the spreading of fashion trends, booms and crashes in the stock market, etc.

The intention with this work has been to let sounds get influenced by their neighboring sounds, to adopt their behavior to its surroundings, and thereby act as a metaphor for social behavior. The installation consists of a graphical representation of the sounds, using one square for representing each sound. The sounds are mapped to a physical spot in the room using four speakers (each speaker representing one corner of the graphical representation). The sounds and graphics in the installation continuously evolve its expression as they constantly are being influenced by their present surroundings.

The representation of the social interaction is realized by mathematical models of coupled nonlinear oscillators, a recent mathematical subgenre, describing the process of how an individual's internal rhythm adjusts to an external rhythm, and thereby to some extent synchronizes its behavior to the surroundings.

Peter Palvén, 2004