Rory Solomon

Presentation

Function Time presents an ‘auralization’ of the computer program as a means to create deeper understanding of the timescales at which software operates. Many projects have created software visualizations, but where the visual emphasizes the objectivity of distance, sound is visceral: we hear inside our skulls, a song can “get in our head”. The function call stack is a structure at the core of the computer program. This stack will be recorded and charted for one millisecond for 12 popular open source software systems. These charts will be converted into musical scores and played. The millisecond will be expanded to a 15 second duration and looped, getting shorter and shorter each play, until finally the individual notes meld into one steady hum. Algorithmic program time will be auralized on a human scale, then will gradually draw the viewer in to the speed at which computational objects actually function. Project will be shown here July 2013: http://instrument.someprojects.info
Artist Bio

Rory Solomon is an artist and software developer. He is Tech Lead for the Urban Research Tool: a mapping platform for geo-spatial research in use by several projects at the New School. As a media artist he has collaborated with Marek Walczak, Ken Goldberg and others on projects featured in the Whitney Biennial, the Berkeley Art Museum, and the National Art Museum of China. He currently teaches programming to art and design students at Parsons, and is pursuing his Masters in Media Studies at the New School, where his thesis focusses on media archaeology and
software.