About the Work

“Void-Vibrations” is a generative art project inspired by principles such as randomness, minimalism, and the release of control, resonating with the philosophies of John Cage. Created by Matto, a Buddhist artist, this project aligns with a practice that values meditation, presence, and the openness to unpredictability.

“Void-Vibrations” focuses on the interplay between sound and silence*, using a limited palette of one to eight notes to create atmospheric soundscapes. Drawing parallels with Cage’s work, it explores the boundaries of auditory perception and embraces silence as a core element, allowing for a deep engagement with the simplicity and immediacy of sound.

Each piece in “Void-Vibrations” acts as a momentary intersection of sound and absence, creating a space for reflective exploration and connection with the present. The project invites participants to experience and interact with the variable textures of sound and silence, promoting a sense of mindfulness and introspective awareness.

The project incorporates a unique visual component: the randomly generated images directly represent frequencies and amplitudes within silence. These visuals stand as timeless entities, providing a static representation of the sonic data. In contrast, the auditory aspect unfolds over time, ranging between 2 to 4 minutes, offering a temporal experience of the represented sounds. Together, the visual and auditory elements of “Void-Vibrations” create a multifaceted exploration of sound and silence, where the timeless intersects with the temporal.

Inspiration and Motivation 

Abstraction to me is about enhancing simplicity and discarding the mundane for a minimalistic purity. Many years ago while exploring methods and techniques of image abstraction, I discovered spectrograms. I was fascinated by the visualization of sonic information, and I began experimenting with processes that started with images and ended with the creation of meditative soundscapes. Now, with the help of JavaScript and Tone.js, I have revisited my research and created Void-Vibrations (WIP / working title).

The nature of generative art and the artist’s release of control, is, to me, beautifully Buddhist. It’s like planting a seed in a prepared garden, tending it and managing weeds and pests, and over a season, watching a flower grow. Beyond my interest in abstraction and minimalism, silence* and randomness, this project is special to me in that it also includes a structured temporal aspect. This project asks its audience to focus their attention and awareness for a few minutes while it delivers both moments of heavy “emptiness” and meditative (and sometimes penetrating) sound.

*Silence

What is void, is actually quite full.

Silence in “Void-Vibrations” includes the ambient sound from the audience’s environment as well as each audience member’s internally perceptible body noises, thoughts, and physical movements and vibrations. As beings of perception, we cannot ignore our surroundings any more than we can ignore our bodies. Experiencing this work changes with each individual’s current state of being and in each time of the day and location in which it is perceived as the world around us and within us is constantly changing.

This resonates with Buddhist philosophies and meditation techniques: living in the moment and not dwelling in it.