1. Emergent Clock (Particle Life), 2024, software
2. Emergent Clock (Cellular Automata), 2024, software
Emergent Clock running and distributing electronic sounds in clusters across 24 audio channels.
Emergent Clocks
In collaboration with programmer Coen Konings, I developed software capable of autonomously generating a dynamic, ever-changing sound composition ecosystem, with up to 25 individual audio channels. This control system, which I call an Emergent Clock, is an algorithm based on the concepts of cellular automata and particle motion. Both the cellular automata clock and the particle system function like mathematical petri dishes, cultivating and sustaining artificial life in a digital space. These models consist of grids of cells that can adopt various states and spontaneously organize into complex patterns.
The Emergent Clock interface has three main sections. On the left, audio meters display volume levels and adjustable parameters. In the center, the particle system (1) and the cellular automata (2) are visualized in real-time as they operate. On the right, the distribution of audio samples across a two-dimensional canvas is displayed, guided by the behavior of the systems. There are two types of clocks: The particle system clock distributes audio samples along lines, influenced by the speed and movement of the particles, while the cellular automata clock creates clusters at specific locations on the canvas, determined by the dominance of particular groups of cells.
Emergent Clock was initially developed for the installation Invisibility of Colour to create an immersive soundscape, distributing audio samples across a wide rectangular grid of loudspeakers hidden behind a white canvas.
Invisibility of Colour, 2023, 20-channel audio installation at gallery SANAA - in situ (2,5 x 5 x 0,05 metres)
For this sound installation, I interviewed people to name and describe colors. Hundreds of these spoken colors play through 20 invisible loudspeakers, spread across a wide rectangular grid, hidden behind a large white canvas.
Invisibility of Colour, 2023, 20-channel audio installation (3 x 3 x 0,05 metres), puntWG Amsterdam
Impression of the sound installation with animated circles to get an idea of where the sound is positioned on the canvas (1:27)
The Longest Distance, 2018, 16-channel sound wall, 3.5 x 8m, AIR Kunstvereniging Diepenheim
The Longest Distance is a sound installation consisting of hidden loudspeakers behind a large white canvas. For the sounds (which you continuously hear), I combined the cosmic background radiation, a relic from the birth of the universe, with the beating heart of an unborn baby. I brought together what is closest, the baby's heartbeat, and what is farthest away: the sound that remains from the Big Bang, 13.8 billion years ago. I make use of a white screen, and you can hear the heartbeat in a very specific location. The cosmic sound fills the space and is all around you.
Harm van den Berg collaborates with Junko Murakawa (JPN) to create abstract electronic music under the name Midori iro, they compose unpredictable sonic landscapes, ranging from delicate harmonies to extreme dissonances. By stacking random sequences and gradually altering various parameters, subtle shifts emerge within the complex, self-generating sound structures, revealing emergent properties.
Small trees have already lost their leaves in July 2018 due to the extreme heat
Sound Walk (2018)
Networks, complexity, and emergence play an important role in Harm van den Berg's work. His research as an artist-in-residence in Diepenheim focuses on the sounds of hidden natural phenomena. During his stay, Van den Berg took the same walk every day, often carrying a recorder to collect sounds such as growing corn, singing ants, and mating hedgehogs. He also recorded expressions of the cultural life of the Diepenheimers themselves. The outcome of his research was a half-hour sound walk.
While walking with headphones and an audio player, the listener is immersed in a story of hidden worlds. One of its leading themes is the serious impact that the extreme heat and drought had on nature and the community during the summer of 2018 — it was the hottest summer since weather measurements began. Van den Berg makes you look at the surroundings of Diepenheim in a new way, showing how natural and cultural networks coexist within its small community, and how strong and flexible, but also vulnerable, their connections are.
Concept and production
Harm van den Berg (in collaboration with Pépé Smit)Music by
Vincent van Warmerdam
Thanks to
Martine Berghuijs
Forest ranger Jan KistemakerHarrie Alberts
Group 3 and 5 of Obs Stedeke,
Miss Inge and Miss Mirthe
Jannie Smale
Historical Society Old Deep'nSinging Choir de Deepse Troubadours
De Harmonie Diepenheim
Kunstvereniging DiepenheimSound Studio De Slapende Hond
Mondriaan Fund
The artist-in-residence is part of Binnenlandateliers of the Mondriaan Fund and a collaboration with Werkplaats Diepenheim.
Spoken Colors / Random Paintings
Gesproken Kleuren / Toevallige Schilderijen
In search for a new kind of painting. I made a piece called Spoken Colors/Random Paintings. It consists of a CD containing 54 spoken colors by different people on 54 different tracks. The sound work is both a painting and an exhibition. Each time you play the CD (with ‘random’ function on) a different painting can be heard because the order of colors changes. The number of possible paintings outnumbers the atoms in the universe.
2003
NL/ENG
Edition: 300 + 500
Design: Ingrid Scheinhardt
