This is a short video excerpt of a generative C++ program running live.

This C++ program maps its own code structure to sounds that I recorded using only the built-in microphone in my iMac. I recorded samples of myself singing, typing, pushing on my desk and computer, and breathing. The program goes through its own code line by line (displayed on screen) using the characters, whitespace, punctuation, and line length to generate the music. Strong programming is elegant and concise, and, like a poem, it makes good use of whitespace. This piece translates how programmers describe their work, strangely poetic, into sound, but it unexpectedly does so with a female voice.

Some aspects of this program are probabilistic, so it can run forever and will never be quite the same. However, the predominant structure of the code will always be discernible.

Inspired by John Baldessari singing the instructions of Sol Lewitt, I sang the instructions that I knew, C++ code. C++ is made up of two files, the header file and the body file. This simple C++ program layers the videos of me singing the C++ files.

I attempted to build a chord by singing as cleanly as possible and recording myself using the camera built in to the computer. First, I sang one note and recorded both the audio and video of myself singing. Then, at the same time as playing back the recording, I sang the next note in harmony and again recorded myself using the computer's camera. I repeated this as many times as I could until eventually I had a recording that had the audio of me singing 13 notes together (where the first note was fed through the computer 13 times and the last just once). The more times a note is re-recorded by the computer, the more distorted it becomes due to the limitations of the computer's hardware and software. I presented the outcome of this investigation as a C++ program which displays the video recordings in a grid on the computer screen. The program randomly goes through the videos to show each stage of my process along with the corresponding audio.

I programmed the first ten default computer voices on my Mac computer to sing randomly generated "scores" of repeated syllables in unison. A C++ program plays the recording of this in triplicate with each video affecting the sound of the next.

I programmed the first ten of Mac OS X's computer voices to sing randomly generated "scores" of syllables in unison.