For the Museum of Science’s recent WaveForms “multimedia art occurrence,” MASARY Studios performed Ritual / System, an ongoing audiovisual research piece exploring the shape of time and perception of sound, at the Hayden Planetarium. The MASARY team wanted to create something specific to the 360-degree canvas and seating arrangement, approaching atmospheres that questioned human understanding of sound and visual form.
In developing their research, MASARY created a custom audio analysis system that could ingest eight audio channels from a performer and output over twenty-four features of spectral analysis per channel. Notch Designer Sam Okerstrom-Lang used the audio analysis to drive three main layers, each complete with an array of particle systems, cloners, volumetric lighting, and camera systems.