Theo Burt, 
Colour Projections

Theo Burt

CD-ROM
 Entr’acte
 E80

If the field of audiovisual production has two different poles (the sonified visual and the visualized sound) this work can be placed exactly in the middle. Colour Projections is software created by Theo Burt that calculates audio and minimal geometrical video conceived as single tracks of an album. Although the work has a technical web structure (it’s viewed in a browser, starting from an html file, but using Flash) it is printed and distributed as a cd-rom by Entr’acte, one of the most eclectic experimental music labels. The code generates geometrical (empty) shapes slowly evolving on the screen in high contrast colors, intersecting, combining and destroying themselves. The code is also responsible for the audio as the outlines of the shapes are directly transformed into audio waveforms. This combination makes the work fluid, hypnotic and minimal. The pure waveforms seem to come straight out of the pixels illuminated in gaudy colours on a neutral background, and the slow but steady progression on both sensorial domains catalyzes the user’s attention, pushing it to the limit. An accordingly ultra-minimal interface allows the user to jump from one composition to another and to pause and resume the execution. The created audiovisual space seems to come out from the machine’s guts, but in a very polite and abstract form. And it’s somehow ironic that such a “machinic” work should be enjoyed with headphones or good speakers because it “contains low frequencies that may be inaudible on built-in laptop speakers.”