LAPS [v2_exhibition-view] - 2010 from art of failure on Vimeo.

Infinite Stream Loop — An Audio Stream Travels the World Wide Web beginning July 1, 2010 :: a piece from the Laps series by Art of Failure. Listen: here.

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 through the web. Listening to these audio streams by using specific processes (very low buffers and no error corrections) makes 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.

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 re-sent with no additional modification through the web.

Sound Material: To emphasize the changes caused by the network, the sound used for the start-up 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 (artifacts, 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 crystallizes 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.

Supported by: Locus Sonus | Géographies Variables Espace multimédia Gantner | Rybn | SCAM | RIAM