The Boltzmann Project
The Boltzmann Project is a random visual generator designed to listen to a song or album and create artwork related to the sound. The project was conceived by French designer Tristan Bagot as her Bachelor Degree project. Bagot describes the concept and how it works beautifully on her website:
“We fear disorder and wish for order. We go after the trouble makers of society.
We would rather have our bedroom, our office or our paperwork in a state of order rather than one of disorder.
But are we really able to be objective about our notions of order and disorder ?
Can we find a way to generate ordered disorder and represent it visually ?
The Boltzmann method answers this question by enabling the generation of an image from a single computer file with
an algorithm based on random components.
First of all randomly generated images are arranged in an orderly fashion, then the file is converted to numbers using
a cryptographic hashing function called SHA-1.
This method lies at the border between determinism and randomness, and can then be applied to many fields such as music artwork depending on the soundfile, a book cover based on the text it contains, a t-shirt depending on the name
of the person wearing it…”
Highbrow conceptual talk aside, Boltzmann produces some pretty amazing album art. Take a look at a few examples of it in action by listening to the track and comparing it to the artwork.Then create some of your own album art with the Boltzmann generator.
[audio:https://thenewlofi.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/09/Mosaik.mp3|titles=Siriusmo – Mosaik]
Siriusmo – Mosaik
[audio:https://thenewlofi.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/09/John_Talabot.mp3|titles=John Talabot – So will be now… (feat. Pional)]
John Talabot – So will be now… (feat. Pional)
[audio:https://thenewlofi.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/09/Hairbrush.mp3|titles=Hairbrush – I Say To You]
Hairbrush – I Say To You
[audio:https://thenewlofi.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/09/TEED.mp3|titles=Totally Enormous Extinct Dinosaurs – Tapes & Money]
Totally Enormous Extinct Dinosaurs – Tapes & Money
