tara rodgers | sound art

Butterfly Effects | 2006
Quadraphonic sound, real-time generation.

Butterfly Effects is a four-channel computer music composition made in the programming language SuperCollider, with a generative structure that unfolds unpredictably and differently each time it is executed. Its structure is derived from behavioral aspects and ecosystem dynamics of migratory monarch butterflies, and is inspired by the butterfly effect concept of chaos theory, which suggests that the flapping of one butterfly's wings can cause significant changes in how a weather system unfolds over time. Each synthesized sound event represents either a butterfly behavior (like flying or clustering), or an environmental condition (like wind or sunlight). All sequences of sound events result from the interdependence of fluctuating elements in the whole system.

The medium of synthesized sound confuses what is real and artificial. SuperCollider code becomes a poetic as well as a functional programming language, as data objects that are created and destroyed reference the life cycles of living things. Although the composition generates indefinitely, most sound elements cycle through in a 24-minute period (where each minute represents one hour in the synthesized environment).

This piece has been presented as a quad installation (preferred), as stereo playback in a concert hall, and as a stereo installation outdoors. It won a 2006 Frog Peak Experimental Music Prize and the 2007 New Genre Prize from the International Alliance of Women in Music.

MP3 excerpt (stereo mix):
Butterfly Effects (Hours 0-11) | 8.3 mb
Code excerpt
Artist statement in Leonardo Electronic Almanac
Transcript of online chat with LEA authors