depart creates permanent audiovisual installation at the berlin soundcloud HQ

depart creates permanent audiovisual installation at the berlin soundcloud HQ
all images courtesy of depart (leonhard lass & gregor ladenhauf), 2014

vienna-based artists leonhard lass and gregor ladenhauf from depart were commissioned by soundcloud to create a permanent audiovisual installation in their new office headquarters in berlin. their latest work, entitled ‘rebus cumulations’, is a mixed media clockwork system – a mesmerizing triptych of video screens, real time generated graphics and sounds. on the verge between the mundane and the surreal, the centerpiece of the installation includes an abstract visualization of real-time soundcloud traffic data where the two wing pieces display an accompanying, never ending flow of still life video loops.

lass and ladenhauf arranged and filmed about 120 still life images, structured into five different categories based on their activity and movements: dissolving, rotating, oscillating, streaming, accumulating. each of these qualities are used to relate the animated photographs to the activity in the data. for instance, a decline in soundcloud traffic, plays and uploads produces a ‘dissolving’ still life, whereas a constant development would display a ‘flowing’ movement. these surreal moments, so called cinema-graphs, seemingly frozen but parts of it moving at the same time, are also host of an automated poetry generator that creates a new commentary or title sentence for each cycle in the visual data.

every single object from the 120 still life images are cataloged and cross-linked within lexical databases

determined by graphical rules, the arrangements are constantly changing

the application was developed with VVVV. it runs in realtime and is connected to soundcloud usage statistics. every minute the global data set is analyzed and according to detected tendencies a ‘energy state’ is calculated which drives the whole system and decides on the visualization. the installation is presented on three full HD 46 inch LED screens, custom made speakers and built into a wooden box.