UC Riverside

The Mandelbrot set, a fractal well known in the world of mathematics, exhibits many interesting properties for music composition. In fact, when read as a visual score from top-left to bottom-right, this fractal not only creates form through its horizontal symmetry, but has clear areas of tension and release ideal for creating exciting music. As the Mandelbrot set is visually beautiful, this project focuses on creating audiovisual works of art using data sets from the main set, zooms of the set, and both mild and extreme functional alterations. While basic sonifications of the set have been explored by other artists before, this project seeks to create a multi-movement work where each sonic and visual element is controlled by or directly relates to the Mandelbrot set. This raises a number of interesting questions, most importantly: How can one translate math into art in a way that there is a clear, meaningful connection between the art and the source? While answers may vary, the most effective answer for this project was to focus on recreating my personal musical language in the form of a mathematical formula, through which data points from the Mandelbrot set are processed.