waveforms are shaped into sounds, and are then programmed with a simple graphical stepsequencer, which initiates a little living sound ‘creature’. multiple creatures can be made. when the ‘seaquence’ playback is launched, these organisms freely navigate a small playspace on the user’s screen, interacting with each other. the interactions control the playback of the sequence programs that each waveform creature is ‘programmed’ with, resulting in a sort of living ambient music.
‘seaquence’ is social in that these creatures can be shared and edited. although this feature is currently very primitive, we can see how it might be expanded into something far more sophisticated, allowing a wide range of musical and possibly visual interactions between people who use the system.
seaquence was initially revealed in an alpha state almost a year ago. at that time it had a far different look, and this demo video depicts it being used to drive a different sort of music than what the current version seems to excel at.
Created by Ryan Alexander, Gabriel Dunne and Daniel Masse, “seaquence” is co-sponsored by San Francisco’s Gray Area Foundation for the Arts http://www.gaffta.org/ , an interactive-media group which also helped fund the syzygryd collaborative sequencer/sound sculpture http://www.syzygryd.com/ we blogged here shortly before its debut at Burning Man 2010.
Although not for everyone, we see ‘seaquence’ as part of an emerging trend in online music – social ‘light footprint’ interactive environments which gently encourage creativity on part of a larger audience. …an active rather than passive listening experience, but not so active as to prevent one from getting some work done!
