Installation at Diapason
April 3, 2008
Diapason presents
Saturdays
April 5, 12,19 & 26
2-8 p.m.
Opening Reception: April 5, 6-8 p.m.
David Galbraith
lgOpre
an audiovisual installation
lgOpre (luh-GOP-ruh) is an audiovisual installation of multichannel sound and projected digital animation created with real-time software that links vintage grid pattern algorithms with vinyl record lock-groove samples. The software behind lgOpre, written by the artist, uses customized abstract image generation routines (c.1970), appropriated color schemes, and self-similar number patterns to create an animation that is also a visual controller for a modular digital sound studio. Each of the 34 grid pattern building blocks used for lgOpre is mapped to its own set of processed and unmodified lock-groove samples. The color of the underlying grid is used to select which sound will play as the basic grids from each animation frame are visually highlighted in turn for a determinate duration before advancing to the next frame. Aleatoric color scheme variants introduce a degree of chance to the sound-image mapping.
Compositionally, lgOpre first introduces each visual building block as a full-screen matrix using black and white, grayscale or a few saturated colors to create monochromes or relatively simple patterns accompanied by solo sound samples. The screen splits in half horizontally, then vertically, producing four quadrants with increasing pattern complexity. New color schemes and faster sequencing within a single animation frame trigger the look of blocky color video games or visualized computer core dumps and densely layered multichannel sound.
Locked grooves and the title of Galbraith’s 2002 video Open Research which juxtaposed animated black and white ‘big bit’ grids with human-sized inflatable sculpture from the late-1960s helped give lgOpre its name: locked groove Open research.