The principles of Harmonics were discovered by Pythagoras c.587-c.507 B.C. during travels to Egypt and throughout the ancient world. Hans Kayser made a profound philosophic study of harmonics in the 20th century. Algorithmic composition is the technique of using harmonic algorithms to create music. Drew Lesso has been creating algorithmic music since 1975. Samples like Crystal, Constellations, or Planet Earth demonstrate the math behind the music. Over the years, Lesso has collaborated with many other musicians and poets to create an airy, evolutionary legacy.
posted by netbros on Jul 5, 2009 - 19 comments

Sorting Algorithm Animations.
posted by signal on Apr 13, 2009 - 52 comments

Universal Algorithm of Experience: Rev. Luke Anthony Murphy has produced four books of graphs over the past five years: Relationships, Spiritual Matters, Money, and Problems. These graphs are attempts to give shape to the conditions that produce the internal environment of anxiety. Recently a group of these were presented in a show called Wilderness at Bernadette Salvage Fine Arts in conjunction with 7hours in Brooklyn. Rev. Luke Anthony Murphy is a painter and shows this work as well as his digitally produced drawings and photos in New York, Toronto, and Berlin. He currently lives in East Harlem, New York, and works for CBS.com.
posted by Fizz on Sep 19, 2008 - 16 comments

Data-Driven Enhancement of Facial Attractiveness
posted by phrontist on Sep 8, 2008 - 39 comments

Modelling Human Memory. Or, really, predicting the point of forgetting.
posted by weston on Apr 22, 2008 - 26 comments

The Algorithm: Idiom of Modern Science - an allegory told with iPods as Universal Machines.
posted by loquacious on Jan 19, 2008 - 42 comments

Algorithm. JPEG compression explained.
posted by cgc373 on Sep 11, 2007 - 32 comments

The Algorithm March: with Ninja and Everyone Together
posted by The Great Big Mulp on Jul 30, 2007 - 13 comments

Introduced to Western culture by the Beatles in their single Norwegian Wood, the sitar has featured prominently in North Indian classical music for centuries. Princeton-based computer scientist Ajay Kapur updates the instrument with his ESitar, an audio and video controller that uses gesture input (PDF) and machine learning algorithms to facilitate joining the computer with Ajay in his sitar performance. Undergraduate engineering students at the University of Pennsylvania work from the other direction, building RAVI-bot, an award-winning, self-playing robotic sitar (YouTube) programmed to generate music from classical Raga scales and melodies all on its own. For those in the Philadelphia area, be sure to check out a live performance of RAVI-bot at the local Klein Art Gallery.
posted by Blazecock Pileon on Apr 19, 2007 - 32 comments

Gary Stasiuk's beautiful Digital Creatures pulls the curtains on the kinematics of geometric objects, after which he plays with the mathematics and user interactivity of generative art and shows how to build the appearance of AI behaviors into Flash objects.
posted by Blazecock Pileon on Apr 11, 2007 - 14 comments

The John Whitney Music Box Variations are (currently) 17 nifty Flash sound/color objects based on the harmonics and algorithmic animation work of John Whitney, from the same fine fellow who brought us CoverPop and ColrPickr.
posted by loquacious on Oct 8, 2006 - 15 comments

A look at an algorithm Google uses to run large-scale computations in parallel on thousands of cheap PCs: MapReduce. Via Joel on Software.
posted by russilwvong on Sep 8, 2006 - 16 comments

Algorithmic composition is a method of composing music using basic alogrithm models to compose. Musicalgorithms is a program designed to allow composers a tool to explore algorithmic composition and lay people the opportunity to create music based on non-musical models.
posted by DeepFriedTwinkies on Jun 10, 2005 - 4 comments

Quake to hit LA "by September 5," predicts a geophysicist at UCLA's Institute of Geophysics and Planetary Physics. Some skeptical, while others say it's not junk science.
posted by valerie on Apr 15, 2004 - 34 comments

The genger genie purports to guess the gender of an author by reading a sample of their writing. The program is based on an algorithm describe here, at nature.com. [Via Hit Or Miss.]
posted by silusGROK on Sep 3, 2003 - 61 comments

"GoogleSynth uses the Google Image Search thingy to randomly grab two images as the 'input' and 'target' images for the algorithm. Once it has two images it applies the algorithm with the parameters set by the user and produces a new image based on them. The results vary wildly, often the output is a total mess, but it creates some cool looking stuff now and then (depending on your definition of 'cool')." (For Windows and Mac OSX.)
posted by Dean King on Jan 29, 2003 - 5 comments