Sixty-four hexagrams, each one a landscape of natural sound you can cast, compose and listen to.
Two signs, yin and yang, combine into eight trigrams, then sixty-four hexagrams. Its logic is visual, readable, and can be rewritten.
Heaven, Earth, Wind, Fire, Rain, Water, Mountain and Thunder were recorded and visualized in p5.js. Paired eight by eight, they become sixty-four scenes.
What would you like to listen to?
Three coins. Heads count three, tails two. Lines build from the bottom up; 6 and 9 are changing lines.
Each trigram is a recorded element, rendered as a generative image from its own sound.
The I Ching generates eight basic elements from two symbols, yin and yang, and from them sixty-four hexagrams: a tool for understanding the world. Read as literature, it is a genre of writing guided by visual logic, with a recognizable, comprehensible, even replicable creative process.
Yi rewrites and expands the I Ching inside that framework, using sound visualization in p5.js to make its original and contemporary meanings accessible to more people.
Record the sounds of eight natural elements, one for each trigram.
Import the recordings into p5.js.
Visualize each sound as a generative image that reflects its element. Every visual is generated from algorithmic data.
Create an individual audio track for each natural sound.
Pair the images in every combination, 8 × 8 = 64, to depict specific natural scenes.
Concept, sound, p5.js visuals and design: Jingyi Zhang, Rainmelon Studio. Based on the 2024 installation. In this prototype the field recordings are stood in for by synthesized audio.