'order of sound: listening to the new real' by christos voutichtis

‘order of sound’: opening a portal to a ‘new real’

Artist and architect Christos Voutichtis reveals ‘Order of Sound’, a new media and generative art installation that explores our perception of public spaces, architecture, and nature through sound. The artwork features a radial arrangement of five finely sculpted and complex kinetic antenna receivers. Each receiver captures transverse vibrations of the electromagnetic waves that perpetually surround us.

Through this process, Voutichtis orchestrates ‘a transduction or journey of transformation of the substance and sense of sound as it passes through various media’. He acquires data from the electromagnetic spectrum to accomplish an ‘audification’ and visualization that opens up a ‘metaphorical wormhole to a parallel universe‘.

‘Order Of Sound’ Aircraft hangar Frankfurt am Main, during the pandemic, 2020
image © Christos Voutichtis

To put it otherwise — ‘Order of Sound’ is an opportunity to enter a landscape generated by sound frequencies. ‘It is a project of a ‘new real’ where space is both physical and virtual, reinventing the perceptual bond which ties us to a milieu, yet with more advanced technologies,’ notes Voutichtis (see more here).

Technically, the acquired data — which we hear as sound — is processed through a neural AI network that translates the statistical figures into diagrammatic and graphical elements exploring vast possibilities in real-time. These variations are rendered by vvvv Creative Coding software in the form of a 3D virtual world — or a voluminous ‘data landscape’ — that viewers can experience as an actual screen projection or with VR glasses.

Sound Research at Azores, 2022
image © Pola Sell

capturing the ‘sound’ of each place

What’s fascinating about the project is how Voutichtis travels with his audiovisual system to capture the unique ‘sound’ of a particular place. He says: ‘The continuously changing frequency parameters and their conversion to input for the sound-and-image generation software bring to our attention the normally invisible and inaudible singularity of places. Every place and every corner of a city has its sound. The auditory and visual character of a city gets reinterpreted.’

The frequencies detected (between 0 hertz or cps and 6 gigahertz) include analog and digital signals emanating from communications satellites in outer space, telecommunications networks, myriad machines, airplanes, and weather phenomena such as strong temperature fluctuations, thunderstorms, and hurricanes.

a commentary on public spaces

Besides interpreting the ‘signature sounds’ of different locations, Voutichtis’ work also explores the tainting and monopolization of public spaces worldwide: ‘Public spaces, whether physical or virtual, should not only be accessible to everyone but should also remain places of equality, encounter, and exchange. However, these spaces have become increasingly privatized, institutionalized, and surveilled for decades. Some people are excluded, and social inequality has become increasingly more visible. The very survival and existence of public space are now in question.’

As such, ‘Order of Sound’ creates a space that does not follow any law, opposing exclusion and economic inequality, and therefore disrupting a system of order and hierarchy. ‘It is a place that arises and appears between boundaries, which is vitally anarchic, which has no base or foundation, which establishes no reference to existing structures, and which has no origin or governing principle,’ concludes the artist.