MEANDERING RIVER is an audiovisual installation created in collaboration with onformative. Real-time visuals and AI-composed music reinterpret the movement, erosion, and changing behaviour of river landscapes through an evolving audiovisual system.
Our Role Sound Concept, Music Composition & Production, Programming, Machine Learning Environment, Mix & Master, On-site Implementation // Creative Direction, Production, Code & Design, Research onformative // Hardware Provider ICT AG Berlin // Year 2018
MEANDERING RIVER is an audiovisual installation developed together with onformative that explores how changing river landscapes can be translated into moving image and sound. The work visualizes processes such as erosion, sediment movement, and shifting river paths through algorithmically generated real-time imagery distributed across multiple screens.
The installation approaches rivers as systems in constant transformation. Real-time visual simulations reinterpret natural behaviours and patterns observed in meandering river formations, creating a continuously changing landscape from a bird’s-eye perspective. The visual system was developed through custom rendering processes and real-time graphical simulations informed by river dynamics.
The musical layer was created through a machine learning process based on recorded piano improvisations. Pianists first responded directly to the visual movements of the simulated rivers, creating a dataset from which the AI learned different musical behaviours and compositional tendencies. The resulting sound continuously moves between these learned musical states, creating an evolving relationship between image, motion, and composition.
For the project, we created the sound concept and musical system together with the machine learning environment and overall audio production. Our work included music composition, programming, mix and master, and on-site implementation within the audiovisual installation.
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