Make Some Meaning/Make Some Noise (2013)

Custom Software, (JavaScript, Max/MSP, Ableton Live) Installation, Microphone, Headphones, two computers, USB stick

Make Some Meaning/Make Some Noise is a system, built using Javascript, Max/MSP and Ableton Live, that may serve as a departure point for further projects examining the inherent paradoxes in cryptographic practices.

Make Some Meaning/Make Some Noise provides the experience of turning meaningful sound into noise and back, contrasting a perceptual understanding of noise with an informational, theoretical one.

The participant is invited to record a message with digital audio and completely scramble it by shuffling the place of each sample, creating a “noisy” message. The scrambled message can then be sent to a recipient, along with a key: a string of numbers, as long as the number of audio samples in the message (there are 44100 samples per second of audio), that the recipient will use in order to revert the noisy message back into the meaningful phrase that was communicated. For example, the requirement of a “key” message leads to an infinite regress: the encryption of a message calls for a key which itself has to be transmitted safely, requiring its own encryption and key, which would require it’s own encryption and key, and so on...ad infinitum.

Theoretically, the strongest form of encryption requires a one-time key that is as long as the message itself. This key would also need to have been generated without any statistically discernible patterns; a requirement which would demand of the encryptor to have access to a truly random number generator, like a decaying isotope.



Credits:
Design and Development: Jasmin Blasco