Harvestworks Art and Technology Internship Program presents Slice of Infinity, the audible analogue to the famous “Library of Babel!” Come explore an infinite collection of sounds.
DATES AND TIMES: Installation 11 AM – 5 PM, August 23-24, 2025
LOCATION: Harvestworks Art and Technology Program Building 10a, Nolan Park, Governors Island
FREE
This project represents the culmination of the hard work of many Harvestworks interns. It begins with the generation of random numbers, which are then fed into three different “encoders.” The first, created by Kei Watanabe, uses these numbers as inputs for Conway’s Game of Life, transforming them into a rich, morphing sound as the game unfolds. The second, by Esmé Nadeau, applies the random data as rules for constructing waveforms and layering effects through procedural wavetable synthesis. The third, designed by Micah Lewis, draws on wave-terrain synthesis to generate spatial and sequencing rules that shape the sound further. Micah proposed and led the project as an opportunity for all interested interns to deepen their understanding of the programming language Max/MSP.
With a tablet interface, users can flip through live randomly generated data (represented as a matrix of colors), and “walk” across the color terrain that will be displayed on the projector screen. They’ll also get to watch Conway’s game of life play out on the screen!
- BIO Micah Lewis
Micah Lewis is pursuing an undergraduate degree in mathematics at the University of Louisville, with minors in computer science and physics. With six years of piano studying, a love for postmodernism, and with his experiences with his blind brother, he’s found a deep interest in the field of data sonification. He’s developed a Markov chain sonifier, as well as a deeply interactive sonification project using a car traffic dataset, utilizing a Korg Nanokontrol.