An attempt of Jan Henrik Hansen to materialize music (http://www.formfollowsfunk.com)

Ever since artists of all kinds have been fascinated by joining the realms of our senses and their separate perceptions into one artifact - the synthesis of senses.
These days computers enable us to handle architecture and music with new techniques and tools. In both cases respective work is stored as digital data and created or edited by means of graphical user interfaces. Being broken into 0 and 1, two aesthetic worlds can meet on a fundamental layer.
Here it is attempted to engage the similar principles of structure found in architectural as well as musical perception and thinking to achieve a translation of music into space and back.



3D
As an architect one encounters the wide spectrum spanned between 2D and 3D intensely.
The third dimension not only adds one to two, but produces a quantum leap in terms of information depth and complexity. Every step on the way from 2D via 3D to 4D-space provides certain facets of reality to human minds, and therefore applies for certain representations.
Being exposed to 3D-CAD as an architect, and Audio/Midi-sequencers as a drummer, I was startled by the similarities of the two Software-Worlds.
Both worlds become alive when time is introduced (animation < > sequencing), and they both or their representations unfold in space.
I began to wonder if their respective strengths could be linked or even joined – an imagination that holds my fascination to this day.
Would it be possible to write and edit music real time in 3D-space, with the advantage of experiencing a formerly abstract notation as a physical, intuitive and interactive counterpart ?
Is it possible to inform architectural design with the structure, presence and radiation of musical phenomena ?
(excerpt from diploma thesis "OneSense" / Form follows Funk, three - dimensional notations of music“, ETH Zurich, Faculty of Architecture, Jan Henrik Hansen, 2000)

Real time transformation of played live music