musical portraits of Pentium Snails/Powe

[Info-Mac]

Download: http://archive.info-mac.org/art/think-snail-02.hqx

ThinkSnail.02 is an aleatoric-algorithmic music application, it plays
mystic, abstract music while morphing selected Pentium Snail portraits
with Power Macs from the amazing G3 collection, followed by images of
a rare PieFaced Gates. A new multimedia art form.

What you see: the ancient Pentium Snail images have been combined with
modern PowerMac G3 images and a rare PieFaced Gates. This was made
into a QuickTime movie within the MAX patch and then cycled back and
forth at about 36 Hz. until one is selected by a random process. This
creates a kind of morphing effect of images changing and growing as
the frames flip by. Eventually all 20 portraits will be shown,
although the process will stop at the same images from time to time.
What you hear: The music is derived from the numbers that are used to
cycle the pictures, only they are interrupted and randomly skewed in a
different fashion. The process is akin to an algorithm and I like to
think of this music as algorithmic music because there are "basins of
attraction" created by many of the interconnections that produce
recognizable musical and rhythmic patterns. I used 3 sound samples, a
wild eep, a kind of deep blue indigo and a litigious sosumi.
Howzitdone?: Max is an object-oriented program builder, you patch
functional modules together in a kind of circuit, like the old Moog
Synthesizer. The circuit patchers are hidden behind the black .pict
background.

Notes:
The Pentium II Chip shown on the back of the snail is Intel in origin
and was created in Silicon Valley ca. 1996-1997 A.D. It is amazingly
life-like and modern, considering that it was created during the Dark
Ages of computing, when Wintel Boxes claimed most marketshare. The
PowerMac G3, however, has a sense of reality, dimension and
perspective that indicates a new Mac Renaissance. The rare PieFaced
Gates is the work of a fellow prankster, and came out the same week as
the Snail Ads, forever tying these images together in the minds of Mac
Users worldwide. The final Mac Logo with the ìThink Differentî phrase
seems to project itself across the ages with a vivid presence.