Constructive Accumulation: A Look into Self-Organizing Strategies for Aggregating Temporal Events along the Rhythm-Timbre Continuum

This paper aims to summarize several algorithmic techniques taken from dynamical system modeling that can repurposed to produce 'constructive accumulation', a paradigm for describing the process by which concurrent, rhythmic events or sound sources gradually converge over time. Using different behaviors of self-organization from dynamical systems modeling, these strategies employ networks of locally and globally coupled oscillators that can generate a range of swarm-like acoustic textures, each reflecting a range of synchronous states along a rhythm-timbre spectrum. More specifically, I review the behavioral dynamics and clustering kinetics of ‘scrambler’ oscillators, pulse-coupled oscillators, and a group of Kuramoto oscillators with feedback. I also provide a basis for sonifying such models, briefly touching on concepts in psychoacoustics that are relevant to the design of such sonic systems. Lastly, I demonstrate the way in which they’re implemented, controlled, and composed for as generative models in my recent artwork, ‘In Praise of Idleness’