Browser Music

by Frank Bierlein
 

Browser Music entitles a digital method to use the internet browser as a tool for composition and as an instrument.

A key word typed into the browser program leads to web pages that contain sounds relating to the key word. The principle of composition comprises the congestion of data transfer and data processing: the amount of web pages that are opened simultaneously cause high latency and high error rate in transmitting audio data. The sound that remains is then recorded and becomes a music piece on its own.

The webpages, as sources of information, thereby enable a playful and experimental production of music, based on the sounds they produce. The browser and internet, every-day instruments, are used in opposition to their functional aspect as tools commonly serving for efficient organization. Instead, they become a digital sound object.



For the piece Lift the youtube-videoclip ‹s20-20000hz sinewave sound chirp› has been opened ca. 70 times on the website youtubeonrepeat.com.


Frank Bierlein was born 1918 in Bluefields, Nicaragua. His work follows a strictly experimental approach. As a member of qwqwi, papapachini and the himmlisch kind he has performed and exhibited in NYC, Prague, Shanghai, Tallinn and Zeißholz.