We humans tend to treat our perceptions as holistic—as seeing things as things, instead of as
an accumulation of parts, details and features. This is the great abstracting power of the
3-pound neural network in our heads, and is a major differentiating characteristic from other
computational paradigms.
The holistic pattern of Deconspectrum is that of the spectrum analyzer, a tool for
understanding the components of a sound signal. You'd recognize the spectrum analyzer as
the (often colorful) bar graph showing how loud the bass, mids and treble are on a fancy car
radio or web MP3 player (which are often just fake animations). These graphical displays are
intended to give an insight into the component parts of a signal that complement our own
perceptions: we can hear the loudness of the bass or the absence of midrange, but we
couldn't tell you something as specific as how much energy there is at 250hz (at least, not
without practice).
Any given sound can be understood as an accumulation of sine waves, a simple oscillation of
air. Breaking apart a sound into these components is known as decomposition, and is the
basic principal of a mathematical technique called the Fast-Fourier Transform, which gives us
access to the raw numbers of a sound, the exact amounts of energy, that the unaided ear
can't provide. The spectrum analyzer supplements our perception by dividing a signal into
"bands," organized by the frequencies of these component parts. Or, at the very least, they
give the manufacturers of audio devices something flashy to add to their product.
These tools are always presented as a single whole with a single function, one complete thing
that breaks down the features of another perceptually complete thing. Deconspectrum pulls
these things apart, eviscerates them, granting their constituents a new autonomy in the form
of small luminous cubes that are each tuned to their own frequency band. These bands are
mapped to the color of the cube, from yellow to green to blue to red and all the colors in
between. They are conceptually identical to the rising and falling columns of the spectrum
analyzer, but now spatially distributed and able to be moved and re-ordered—and crucially,
still capable of emerging the holistic experience of the sound and its analysis. In other words,
Deconspectrum is both the sum and the parts, the spectrum analyzer and its frequency
bands, the pattern and the features.
Deconspectrum is best experienced in quiet, when the viewer can whistle, sing or hum
distinct tones and see before them their melody reflected in color.
