PITTER PATTER
AUBURN HIGH SCHOOL + Allen Moore + PIXELSYNTH
PITTER PATTER is an experimental album produced by Auburn High School’s Studio 2 Art class, Chicago-based sound and visual artist Allen Moore, and Auburn High School art educator Jason Judd. Developed by Allen Moore and Mr. Judd, this project afforded remote/virtual students the opportunity to learn how to produce an experimental, multi-faceted art piece.
During the project, each student produced an original haiku, which was used as inspiration to create a simple, high-contrast drawing—essentially illustrating the haiku. Students then used their drawing as an experimental musical score by utilizing a web-based synthesizer instrument called PIXELSYNTH, which was developed by coding artist Olivia Jack. The synthesizer allowed students to upload their high-contrast drawing into the program and “play” the drawing. The synthesizer reads white areas of the drawing as notes/tones and the black or dark areas as silence. The students also had control over the number of notes and the scale that the drawing was read or played in.
Individually, the result is a dynamic piece of art that needs to be experienced through reading, looking, and hearing. Collectively, the class’s experimental album shows the power of collaboration, virtual connection, and experimental learning in a global pandemic.
Artist Allen Moore also participated by creating a drawing to be published in the album with the students.
COLLABORATORS
COLLABORATORS
ALLEN MOORE
“Artist, curator and DJ Allen Moore is heavily involved in community engagement in the Chicagoland area where he inspires a call to activism through art and education. Moore wears many administrative hats in the art world, from co-curator at Comfort Station Logan Square to sound series curator at Experimental Sound Studio, facilitator / staff at ACRE Residency and meta-media mentor / educator at the McGaw YMCA in Evanston. Outside his involvement with these prominent arts organizations, Moore has also taught Foundation Drawing courses at Northern Illinois University and Governors State.”
– Lauren Ike, Odyssey
PIXELSYNTH - OLIVIA JACK
Artist Olivia Jack created s browser-based synthesizer for creating sounds from images and drawings, programmed using javascript and Web Audio. PIXELSYNTH is inspired by the analog ANS Synthesizer created by Evgeny Murzin in 1937 for composing musical scores.
“PIXELSYNTH turns images into music, scanning across the pixels horizontally and interpreting brightness values as notes. The results are peculiar, obviously, but also strangely melodic.”
- Rob Beschizza, Boing Boing
START ALBUM
ANTIONE
HAGLER
Music runs through my veins
like how a heart pumps oxygen to the lungs
we are inseparable
and together we are one
NEVAEH
FONSECA
A world in the sea
there he stared right back at me
a ripple in the water
BLAKE
OGDEN
In a quiet forest
pitter patter pitter patter
rain falls
ALISZA
POWELL
Our world is always changing
constantly rearranging
from ocean, water, trees, and fire
Mother Nature moves and speaks
CHERLYN
LUNA-TREJO
Orange, Yellow leaves
Fall from the very high tree
In the fall season
TAYLOR JADE
LAIG-DURAN
Odd eyes follow fears
Choose the side of love and fate
Or the side of pain
ABIGAIL
CALLES-DIAZ
Through the darkest times
the suns rays pave the way
but don't stare too long
REI
KATSUMATA
Time is relative
there is no early or late
there is only now
ZAID
VALTIERRA
ALLEN
MOORE
COLLABORATING ARTIST
“Space Cases”
END ALBUM