Pi House Generator at Dunn and Brown Contemporary, Dallas, 2007
Pi House Generator is program for Windows that produces generative house music
by progressively calculating the digits of pi and feeding them into an
specialized algorithmic music generator that I created. This process has some interesting attributes:
- The song is infinitely long and static. Every bit of the audio output is predetermined, even though only a small amount
of it has actually been listened to. So you can jump to any measure in the song and it will always play the same music for that measure.
- As the digits of pi progress further and further, more and more processor cycles are required to calculate the next digit due
to the nature of the pi calculation algorithm being used. After
some years of play, any given computer will not be able to calculate the digits fast enough for the music to play continuously.
- The rate that the number of processor cycles increase per digit is O(NlogN), but
considering Moore's Law, that processor power per
dollar increases at a exponential rate, it appears that by upgrading your computer regularly with the market trends, you can play the pi-generated house song indefinitely.
The program, source, and samples can be downloaded here: VertexList_PiHouse.zip (1gig download)
