» Soundwires , April 16th, 2007

When Motorola asked me to do an illustration for their S9 Bluetooth stereo headphones… I knew I wanted to work with a new program to visualize audio waves. So I started working on a script that visualized attributes like, scale, amplitude, and color. Since the S9 was about wireless music I thought the lines/waves would be a good metaphor for audio and then in Illustrator I could start to cut the lines and let more artwork break free.

Soundwires

In this build I thought I would start mapping artwork on top of the lines for added texture, here it’s just mapping a circle but any artwork could be mapped to this system and I’m sure I’ll re-visit this program in the future with other drawings mapped to the waves.

Soundwires

So here is the final Illustration which should be in the June 2007 issue of Wired Magazine. This illustration combines several random processes… our waves visualized with lines, our waves visualized with mapped circles, a grid component for the scales, random component for things like the X’s, speakers, and ocean waves and the top of the illustration.

Soundwires

Just a little black and white remix. Which I printed 10 of them at 12 inches x 44 inches (30.48 cm x 111.76 cm) and gave them to friends as gifts while at my workshop in Toronto, Canada.

Soundwires

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29 Responses to “ Soundwires ”
  1. Yanzer Lee said, on November 15th, 2007 at 2:13 am

    I love the Soundwires

    I am a fan, since what 5 years ago?
    You are the reason i had my on studio, now currently produce websites for commercial clients in malaysia.

    If you ever come to Malaysia, will be honored to spend you a cup of “the tarik”

  2. Chris Hlavaty said, on November 14th, 2007 at 2:29 am

    Hi Josh, I’ve been a longtime admirer of your work. These sound visualizations are very cool indeed. Question for you: is there any way to obtain the coordinates/curves from a vector shape drawn in flash/illustrator? I’d like to draw shapes with a pen tool then programmatically control the vector curves via AS. Any suggestions? Thanks for any assistance.

  3. Joshua Davis said, on November 9th, 2007 at 12:05 pm

    Hey Eric, so “drawing” vectors on screen can slow the frame-rate considerably. So I offered as a suggestion that you keep the vector data but visible=false. Then push this vector data to a bitmapdata object so you can visualize the results. then after you’ve settled on a stopping point delete any animation processes, visible=false to the bitmapdata object and visible=true to the vectors… this may take some time for flash to render the screen with vectors… but the end result is that you can get very complicated forms without killing the frame-rate.

    hope this helps,

  4. Eric Leach said, on November 9th, 2007 at 9:18 am

    yo Josh, you talked about bitmap data a bit in Colorado, but how you be able to map something other than a circle? Also i thought that bitmap data stuff didn’t print to illustrator. Well im keeping my eyes peeled for the Wired Mag, always a pleasure.

    -eric

  5. Hugh said, on October 22nd, 2007 at 9:47 am

    So that’s where the inspiration for that print came from. Well worth framing.

    The baby loves it. I better get it under glass before peanut butter gets added to the mix.

  6. Peter Jaworowski said, on October 13th, 2007 at 5:47 am

    Thanks man, means a lot!

  7. Joshua Davis said, on October 12th, 2007 at 8:00 pm

    Hey Peter, thanks - you know you got mad skills !!!

  8. Peter Jaworowski said, on October 12th, 2007 at 11:55 am

    Hey J,

    Totally dig those, especially the b/w one. Also great speach on the barcelonas offf, took some usefull knowledge out from it,

    thanks,
    best,
    Pete

  9. Joshua Davis said, on September 19th, 2007 at 3:00 pm

    josh… wow… evgeny kiselev who works on http://ekiselev.com just posted here right after you - what are the chances of that ? I’m not sure what process he uses but his works certainly rocks it super hard.

    –

    cheers evgeny - you know I’m a huge fan of your work !!!

    hey Pat… check for info here :

    http://workshop.joshuadavis.com/print

  10. pat kelley said, on September 19th, 2007 at 12:39 pm

    hi joshua!

    took the aspen workshop with you some years ago (2003?). been meaning to get in touch, thought this might be the way. i’ve been teaching flash in the art dept., now at st. mary’s college of maryland.

    i’m just getting going with cs3, and i’m stumped by the “print pdf as postscript” - what happened? seems like everything is bitmapped now when opened in illustrator…

    any suggestions?

    hope you’re well!

    -pat

  11. evgeny kiselev said, on September 19th, 2007 at 10:29 am

    Amazing work!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
    And b/w stuff simple great!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
    Cheers!

  12. Josh Coyle said, on September 19th, 2007 at 9:47 am

    This guy is sicko…

    http://ekiselev.com/

    I wonder if his techniques mirror yours at all.

    JC

  13. Harsha Nagaraju said, on September 10th, 2007 at 7:07 am

    Hi Joshua!

    I got here through your work for BMW Z4.What’s striking about your designs is the ability to invoke an emotional connect. That is something really unique considering that your work deals with high end technology and abstraction.
    More inspiration to you!

    Best,
    H.

  14. Toni said, on September 9th, 2007 at 1:37 am

    Oh man! this is amazing! :) Those pieces are just incredible.

    I agree with Joe Allen, i would too like to see how you work and how you produce these pieces.

  15. erica falke said, on August 13th, 2007 at 3:52 pm

    whoa. you. are. awesome. thanks for inspiring me to try new things and reach new heights.

  16. Joe Allen said, on July 16th, 2007 at 11:24 am

    Joshua,

    Always beautiful work. Fluid. I am a local Long Islander, always good to see one of us making waves (not intended!). I’d like to learn more about how you actually do the algorithms and how the process works, I’ll be doing some research…

    Rock&Soul.

    Joe Allen

  17. safetycopy said, on June 24th, 2007 at 11:10 pm

    Captivating pieces…

    I was wondering: are you mapping actual audio input somehow, or does your script simulate the patterns? Either way, the output is beautiful…

  18. Ryan Fairchild said, on June 23rd, 2007 at 7:09 pm

    Hey, I really enjoy your art. I feel like if I ever did anything that related to your work (randomization, chaos theory, scripted art) I would just be half assed and a copy cat. It interests me to no end, and inspires me in alot of just general web deisng that I do.

    Pray station alone is such a kick to sit back and read. I’ve only just been introduced to your work but I literaly take time out of my weekend just to go through your archives. It is refreshing to see such creativity.

    Keep inspiring the world, you do a damn good job at it.

    Hope to be able to afford to buy a work of art from you someday.

  19. Down10 said, on June 23rd, 2007 at 1:28 pm

    Hey, Josh. Remember me? from Dreamless? …Probably not.

    Anyway, I’ve been revisiting Flash lately and I thought of your experiments when I got the latest issue of Wired. Glad to see you’re still active and sharing your work!

    If you’re ever in SF again, let me know… it’d be cool to have a little Dreamless riot/reunion to catch up on old times.

  20. Joshua Davis said, on June 19th, 2007 at 12:53 am

    cheers Josh - yeah I had a great time and thanks for making it out to the gig.

  21. Josh Coyle said, on June 19th, 2007 at 12:44 am

    I’m attending flashbelt pretty much b/c I keep up with your tutorials and submissions off this site.

    After listening to you today I just wanted to say “thx”…

    I really respect the fire you bring…the stevie wonder clip was fucking sick…needless to say your talk inspired me fer sure

    ppl like you help motivate and drive young designers like myself

    thx again,

    Josh Coyle

    ps - between seeing deftones last night at myth and hearing your talk I had to smoke a fat cigar and drink about 3 blue moons…system overload in a great way…ha

    http://www.myspace.com/jcenfuego

  22. Ron said, on June 17th, 2007 at 8:30 am

    i picked up a wired mag. with no intent to buy saw this on the moto ad, then i went to to counter and paid like 7 bucks. they could put your work on anything and i would propablly buy it.

  23. mizjax said, on June 4th, 2007 at 9:48 am

    Ah man, I got shivers from this. You never cease to amaze me… please come to SA! You have tons of worshippers here! :)

  24. krista hoefle said, on May 22nd, 2007 at 9:29 am

    omigawd….fabu times two. your work just gets better and better!

  25. seba 909 said, on May 18th, 2007 at 5:23 am

    this is massive. very impressive work… no words

  26. Kris Moore - Mullins said, on May 14th, 2007 at 11:11 pm

    I didn’t notice the Koi on the second piece until I viewed it on the black and white piece. I went back and reviewed the color version and even though I knew it was there, it was hard to delineate from the background. It’s a gorgeous piece. So, I thought that I would let you know.
    Thanks for the posting.

  27. jenner said, on May 11th, 2007 at 1:55 am

    I always get lost in your work. gaze-worthy. Inspiration found here, always!

    are you going to come back to Perth / Australia to do anymore public gigs??

    see you around mate,

    j

  28. Joshua Davis said, on May 8th, 2007 at 11:08 am

    cheers !!! see you in BCN.

  29. christian said, on May 8th, 2007 at 10:55 am

    that shit rocks man! love the kois! love the colors!

    see you next week in barcelona …

    –

    christian