BA Project - Visualizing audio file formats

Spring 2018

This was my bachelor project.

I coded a program that took a mp3 file as input and then transformed a small part of it into a 3D cylinder, that represents the actual bits the mp3 file is made from. This 3D model can then be printed and “played”.

Pictures from our workshop with users.

I did this to make the immateriality of digital audio files material and tangible again, since I wanted to explore the relation between the listener and the physical manifestation of the music, like a CD or Vinyl, which is no longer there when music formats become digital.

Watch the video below to see the product in action.