Sonic Web Instrument

At the exhibition from October 20, 2017 to August 5, 2018

Networks form the core of the Internet. Each machine connected to the Internet forms a node and can send and receive messages to and from any other node. The nodes have no hierarchy and no linear structure. Messages can go in any direction at any time.

To better understand how radically different the Internet is from other, more linear and hierarchical communication systems, Niemeyer built the »Sonic Web Instrument«. It allows users to build and take apart simple networks, and to hear what changes in their structures sound like. Does a resilient network sound differ from that of a fragile network? Can one hear the difference between a core cluster and a flat network? Can one tell fast regions of a network apart from slow regions by the way they sound?

For the exhibition »Open Codes«, »Sonic Web Instrument« keeps track of it’s own history. The changes users make become part of the instrument’s repertoire and of the permanent archive of ZKM.

»Sonic Web Instrument« also is a core element of DJ Spooky’s concert »Sonic Web«, which he will perform live at ZKM in the summer of 2018.