My work this semester has concentrated on one sort of technology (network technology) and has praised it. My piece, Visualizaton, reads internet activity on whatever network it is plugged into (for example, a wifi network), and uses the data to drive a visualizer that randomly produces bars of colors and notes from a piano.

Unlike most of the work we've looked at this semester, I did not create this piece with some sort of ulterior political motive. As far as deeper meaning in this piece goes, I simply wanted to show that the internet and the people on it are capable of creating beautiful things. Most other pieces I have seen that were created with the same software I used tend to make a plethora of political statements... mostly having something to do with the FBI, privacy issues, Big Brother, etc.

Because of this difference, I would have to say that my piece seems to be most similar to, say, the work of John Cage. While most of Cage's work was concerned with indeterminacy and the interaction between light sources, my piece is concerned with indeterminacy and the interaction between people (or, visually, between colors). In fact, the method in which I determine which bar and sound shall be played is derived, somewhat, from Cage's method. "Cage might choose a musical pitch from three possibilities. Possibility A could be related to I Ching numbers 1–24, possibility B to 25–48, and possibility C to 49–64. The actual choice of an I Ching number, as described in the book itself when it is used as an oracle, was accomplished by tossing coins or (later) by running a computer program..." (Wikipedia)

Since I do not share Cage's obsession with all things Zen, I've done without I Ching, and rely solely on the computer and other people to make choices within my piece. When the piece is running, it is impossible to say how much network activity will take place during any given second. There could be twenty packets sent. There could be a hundred. There could be none. This is the first random factor. Next, it is (nearly) impossible to say which bar will play. There are 81 bars in total, and a random number generator spits out thirty different random numbers per second. So, a packet received at .1 seconds will play a different bar than a packet received at .15 seconds. Or it could lay the same bar. I have no control over it.

This removal of authorial control is something I have explored in previous pieces. Last semester, I produced a piece which allowed viewers to draw on a digital canvas, using a PC tablet. It scored them on their drawings, saying it was using a complex algorithm to determine the real world value of their piece based on color choice, stroke, brush choice, etc. In reality, however, the value assigned to any action was completely random. Every time a stroke was made, or a color chosen, or a brush changed, the program would choose a random number between -100 and 100, and add it to their current score. Thus, I removed control from all parties involved. I denied myself control by allowing users to create their own art, however I also denied them control by A) lying to them, and B) allowing the program to randomly score them. It's possible that someone could reproduce the Mona Lisa with my program and score a -$2000. It is just as possible that someone could simply scribble all over the canvas in one color and make a piece worth $10,000.

I believe this lack of control and indeterminacy is what makes my piece, Visualization, worthwhile. Like in the real world, people are able to use the internet in any way they see fit. It can produce results which are beautiful and melodic just as easily as it can produce results that are ugly and dissonant.