Visualizing Music Via Creative Coding with Zach Bodtorf

Vellum LA is showcasing a new artist on StandardVision’s digital billboard at Melrose & Spaulding. Zach Bodtorf’s Squarewave will be on view from now until November 28th!

Squarewave is a collection of glyphs generated using pulse waves, where the amplitude alternates evenly between a minimum and maximum value. Created using python, these glyphs - which resemble translucent geometric structures - are as hypnotic as they are striking. The series is inspired by types of signal processing used in music - from the fuzz boxes that distort electric guitar to the circuits that synchronize a metronome. This fascinating body of work reflects the artist’s unique approach to creating by merging sound and algorithms.

Bodtorf, a long time musician, began creating generative art when he discovered a way to visualize tiny fragments of sound while writing code to analyze audio dynamics for his work as an audio mastering engineer. Since then, he hasn’t stopped experimenting with code based art, constantly finding ways to incorporate data from audio samples into complex algorithms to produce mesmerizing works of art. Inspired by Agnes Martin’s minimalist abstract paintings and Alice Coltrane’s avant-garde jazz music, Bodtorf developed an original aesthetic, creating minimalist artworks that feel serene and spiritual. While the artist mostly works with pink noise, occasionally he also experiments with using the data set from a particular song, often making thousands of iterations before creating something that feels like it belongs with the music.

Zach Bodtorf is a generative artist based in Vermont, USA. His art is meditative and minimal, incorporating a variety of elements including data from audio samples, dimensional reduction algorithms, orthographic projections, and genetic self-replicating systems. Catch his Squarewave series in person at Melrose & Spaulding until November 28th! NFTs of Squarewave are available for purchase on Foundation.