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From GenerativeArt

== Biography == <SPAN STYLE="font-size: larger;">Lauri Gröhn is a Finnish artist working in generative music based on images.</SPAN> Gröhn received his Master of Science in Theoretical Physics from the University of Helsinki in 1971. He was first employed as a physics teacher, then he entered the engineering industry in 1976. He developed computer-controlled elevators at Kone Company and then digital telephone distributed switching systems at Nokia Telecommunications. In 1984 he became employed at the [http://www.tekes.fi/en/community/Home/351/Home/473/default.asp Finnish National Technology Agency (TEKES)] as a planner and coordinator of national information technology programs. He then moved within TEKES to business consulting and technology-focused small-and-medium enterprise development. In 1995 he was named head of the Euro Info Centre at TEKES, helping small businesses grow within the EU. In 1998 started work with the [http://ec.europa.eu/information_society/index_en.htm European Information Society] as a project officer specializing in knowledge management. Since 2000 he has been living in Finland and working on his Synestesia project. == Generative Art Connections == Gröhn’s defining work is Synastesia, a Java program that generates entire pieces of music from single images. == Generative Works == Gröhn’s driving inspiration for Synestesia is to allow anyone to produce music by utilizing the more intuitive method of two-dimensional image creation. The program takes an image as input and processes it in various ways to simplify it. Then the program generates a musical composition scored to a variable number of instruments, which is output as a MIDI file. The composition can also be transposed for orchestral performance. The output can be controlled with a variety of user-selected parameters. Basic parameters include a choice of instruments and tempo, while more in-depth parameters include selecting a harmony architecture with specific numbers of vertical notes, minimum intervals, and pitch range. Pixels are read from the processed image vertically depending on the harmony and thickness of harmony parameters. The time axis goes from left to right and the tempo parameter and the number of movements define the length of the piece. The pixels are assigned pitches based on the highest possible pitch parameter and breadth of pitches parameter. Note lengths are determined by the number of “usable pixels” in the image- that is, the number of pixels in a row. Pixels close together result in shorter notes. The lengths are normalized to user-set min/max parameters. == Quotes and Bibliography == "Sculptural work is a good metaphor for the method: the sculptor starts from a block of stone or tree which inspires toward a certain end result. Synastesia is based on filtering pixels away and using several selectable parameters… using parameters reminds of looking the sculpture from different angles or in lightning and environments. The picture on which the music piece is based and the list of parameters together form the metascore of the composition. The challenge is to find pictures generating interesting music." "He who invents a computer program by help of which anybody can produce music, will soon be as rich as Bill Gates.’ (Leif Segerstam,composer and conductor) Synestesia Software is that kind of a computer program." "Most philosophers of music think absolute music has no semantics. The noun 'cat' refers to things called cats but sad music has nothing to refer to. Sad people walk slowly and sad music is slow but that is only an isomorphism or a cliché. Pictures on the other hand have semantics. The mapping from pictures to music is always more or less artificial, there is an infinite number of possibilities." == External Links == http://selfgeneratedmusic.blogspot.com/ http://www.synestesia.fi http://www.synestesia.fi/method/synestesia_2003.html http://www.kolumbus.fi/lauri.grohn/cv.html == Credits == This entry was written by Stephanie Keske

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