“Version_hcsg_1899″ a Track by Daisuke Ishida, in Online Exhibition “What about the Gibbs phenomenon?” at soundmuseum.fm

“What about the Gibbs phenomenon?”
17 NOVEMBER 2008 – 13 DECEMBER 2008
Curated by Shintaro Miyazaki

“Version_hcsg_1899″

“What about the Gibbs phenomenon?”
SOUNDMUSEUM.FM Museum for Contemporary Sound Art

Participants :
Kim Cascone, Christophe Charles, Daisuke Ishida, Greg Haines, Kyoka, Miwon, Stephane Leonard, Catherine Fern Lewis and Nicolas Wiese.

What about the Gibbs phenomenon?

Curated by Shintaro Miyazaki

The Gibbs phenomenon, which is a techno-mathematical problem, builds the initiation of the curatorial concept
behind this group exhibition with 9 international soundartists: Kim Cascone, Christophe Charles, Daisuke Ishida,
Greg Haines, Kyoka, Miwon, Stephane Leonard, Catherine Fern Lewis and Nicolas Wiese.

Named after the American physicist J. Willard Gibbs (1839 – 1903), who was one of the first, who made a description
of it (1899), the Gibbs phenomenon appears basically, when one tries to mathematically approximate a discontinuous
jump function like a square wave with continuous periodic waves like a sine wave and builds a disruptive element.
According to Jean Baptiste Fourier (1768 – 1830) one of the grandfathers of our electronic synthesizers and also the
computer, every physical phenomenon is composed by periodic sine wave signals.

At the turnpoints of the discontinuity (the edges of the square wave) disruptive waves are appearing when increasingly
approximating the square wave with a series of sine wave harmonics. This small dirty waves are artistically interpreted
disruptions, disturbances and errors, which appear between the analog and the digital, between the real-physics and
the symbolic code, which means also between nature and computer.

Listening to these artifacts, which are called ringing artifacts is possible: They appear when audio compressing
(i.e in MP3-format) short sound-impulses and sound like pre-echos. When asked to describe the aesthetics of these
sounds one should use the term “post-digital” a term which was introduced by Kim Cascone into the discourse of
experimental music. They sound like the re-entry of the analog in the digital world – this means very erroneous.

The curated soundartists were provided with 10 short soundfiles, which contain an increasing distortion of a originally
clean impulse sound and were asked to use these sounds as material for the own remixes, soundpieces or
compositions. The exhibition contains 9 miniatures of 18.99 seconds.