About rifts ON SpectroSonics
Forward: Rifts on Spectrosonics
“Wherever we are, what we hear is mostly noise. When we ignore it, it disturbs us. When we listen to it, we find it fascinating.” – John Cage, The Future of Music: Credo
The following video piece is composed of spectrograms. The spectrogram is a visual representation that translates “the strength of a signal over time for a given frequency range”. Through a color spectrum, the density, duration, and energy of sound is made into image.
The piece cycles through various spoken words translated into spectrograms. The process is then reversed: audio files are constructed through a “spectrotyper” so that, when visualized as spectrograms, they reproduce the written word itself. Speech is translated into image and then reconstituted as sound that carries text within it. This cycle forms a de/reconstruction loop: parsing and joining auditory senses, visual materials, linguistic signifiers, the abstract and the concrete.
The words subjected to this loop are translations of “noise” and “sound” in various languages. These terms are systemically used to establish distinctions: dividing signal and interference, intention and excess. This piece seeks to flatten, destabilize these distinctions by rendering them in the same visual and sonic modes. The abstract spectrograms and glitchy audio files from the spectrotyper heighten the similarities between languages and sounds dissolving categories of meaning. What is meant to name difference becomes equivalencies of material.
The piece has two halves that challenge the viewer's perception. In the first, the viewer hears the word or audio before being presented with its visual representation. Sound precedes image, allowing meaning or recognition to form prior to visual evidence. In the second, the spectrograms are presented first inviting investigation prior to context or confirmation. This reversal is a second destabilization, where the authority of understanding between the sonic and the visual is questioned.
As the work progresses, viewers are asked to forgo preconception of noise, sound, and distinction. When reduced to vibration and pattern, the terms lose their oppositional force. The piece hypothesizes that these constructed differences are not inherent, but produced through language, framing, and social systems which can be rearranged, flattened, or dissolved.
End Notes:
Vibration Research. “What Is a Spectrogram?” Vibration Research, https://vibrationresearch.com/blog/what-is-a-spectrogram/. Accessed 14 Dec. 2025
The languages included are ordered: German, Spanish, Swedish, Turkish, Romanian, and French. With the technology available to me, I can only spectrotype languages within the roman alphabet. I was also unable to include any accented letters. I am looking to see what other resources might be available to remedy this unfortunate exclusion.
The programs used for this piece are as follows:
TTSFree. “Free Text to Speech Online.” TTSFree, https://ttsfree.com/text-to-speech. Accessed 14 Dec. 2025.
AudioCheck. “SpectroTyper.” AudioCheck, https://www.audiocheck.net/audiocheck_spectrotyper.php. Accessed 14 Dec. 2025.
RouteNote. “Spectrogram Image Converter.” RouteNote Convert, https://convert.routenote.com/spectrogram-image. Accessed 14 Dec. 2025.
