An Experiment in minimalism.
The drops are just expanding black circles that get progressively more transparent. Each new drop appears on top of the earlier ones and expands to invisibility over a period of just less than three seconds. Since drops appear every half second to match the rhythm of the sound, it means that at any time there are between five and six drops on the screen.
The audio is a tonal row that is repeated and phased. Behind it is a jittered version of the same row where the jittering is such that the lower tones become a drone.
There are just four tones in all and the initial row is a random sequencing of these tones. The same random sequence is used to position the drops on the screen, although this gives no apparent effect.
Choosing four tones was inspired by Alvin Lucier's piece Unamuno, where he chooses four very close together tones. The tones he chooses may be only a semitone apart. My tones are a fourth,a fifth and an octave above an initial, intentionally out of tune, A flat.
Lucier's piece has a more interesting mathematical structure. Because there are exactly 24 different ways in which four tones can be sequenced, his piece consists of exactly 24 measures, each measure containing one of the 24 different sequences. I thought the restriction of tone space was beautiful in his piece, so wanted to try it for myself.
Lucier's piece can be found on YouTube by either Exaudi or the Bozzini Quartet. It's very slow and you can see how each of the performers takes their turn and how these sequences are just permutations of the four voices.
Updated July 2018