The project arose from the idea of visualizing the music, the sound of the cello, in an abstract yet understandable form. The cello serves both as an audio medium and as a visual medium. A 3-dimensional cello floats in space, next to the cellist, only in a highly abstract form, a perspective of the cello from the inside shows lines that not only rotate, but also react to the sound.

The visuals change with the mood of the music and show different parts of the cello, so in the first part, the sarabande, you see more abstract graphics, which then become more clearly the snail, the cello, and in the second part, the minuet, more open relate to the body of the cello, you can see the connection between the belly and the neck there, as well as a larger shot of the belly, in which you can see the sound holes particularly well.

In the gigue, which plays a bit more jaggedly, there is more movement in the noise, and the cello can be seen in full throughout the piece.

The cello becomes a living dialogue partner for Sigurd Müller and his cello. It is meant to show the technical advances in contrast to the music composed by Bach in 1717-23. But the most important thing is the audiovisual live interaction that makes the cello dance. Mood board, reference, and inspiration: abstract lines, play with light and shadow.

The design phase was more of trial and error. I started with the design of the audio filter, or the filtering of the audio in order to rhythmically deform the graphics with the help of the noise. I created the body with a 3D cello, which I reduced by a few polygons to have a good workflow in TouchDesigner. I wanted to work with lines, but the body also had an exciting effect in a flat and textured form. But in the end I rejected it.

The full documentation

Credits

Concept: Fiona Giljohann

Cello: Sigurd Müller

Photos: Nina Weymann

Organisation: Claudia Rohrmoser

Technical Support: Nils