WarnerMedia's The Prow
Generative Sound Sculpture
Multinational media and entertainment conglomerate WarnerMedia tasked us with providing audio solutions for various atria and public spaces in their Hudson Yards location. Among other deliverables, we developed a generative, constantly evolving composition to accompany a 12-story light and sound sculpture titled 'the Prow.'
Designing the Sound Architecture
Our challenge was to craft a beautiful musical solution that was robust and durable, to remain relevant and adaptive for years to come. Working with ESI Design and the art-tech wizards at Rare Volume, we conceived a system based on color, motion and source audio from WarnerMedia film and TV assets. We designed an architecture and logic, first prototyping in Max/MSP and then implementing in Cinder (an extension of C++ for advanced visualization).
We developed 18 unique compositional systems that are manipulated and influenced by Warner streaming content, yielding nearly infinite possibilities for ambient music in the space. In addition to using color hue and intensity to inform composition, we also built a custom audio convolution tool that turns any audio stream into an ambient bed, integrating with the larger composition.
Spatialized Audio
Working with speakers placed vertically throughout the Prow – at the top and bottom as well as embedded in the stairwells – we designed a system where sound moves up and down the Prow along with the visuals, where each color on the spectrum is represented by unique musical and textural elements and different modes of visualization influence aspects of the music.
