Sounding the Abstract is an audiovisual installation that transforms abstract visual art into soundscapes.
Using a custom-built system, eight geometric images are scanned line by line, both horizontally and vertically, and converted into ambient and drone sounds. Each image functions as both a visual composition and an audio score, where color and form shape the sonic experience.
Each image's color palette determines the fundamental sonic qualities—such as tonal character and texture—while other visual elements like shape and color contrast modulate the sound's dynamics and movement. As the system continuously reads the images, the resulting soundscape evolves in real time, creating an ambient sonic environment. This interplay between image and sound blurs the boundaries between visual and auditory experience, offering audiences a multi-sensory encounter.
By converting abstract visual compositions into sound, Sounding the Abstract challenges conventional modes of perception and interpretation. It poses questions like "What does an image sound like?" and "How might listening change the way we understand visual abstraction?" Through this synesthetic approach—where one sense triggers another—the work encourages audiences to reconsider the sensory limits of visual art and discover new ways of experiencing form, color, and space.
Bio
Woohun Joo, PhD, is an assistant professor of digital arts and design at the School of Visual Arts (SoVA) at Penn State. As a visual designer, audiovisual artist, sound designer, and researcher in sonification—the process of creating sound from abstract visual art and data—his projects primarily explore the transfer of minimalistic visual art into auditory domains. He also investigates methods to visualize his sound-making processes in reverse and seamlessly integrate sonification with visual narratives.
Joo's research and audiovisual installations have been presented at notable international conferences such as ACM SIGGRAPH, ACM Audio Mostly, the International Conference on New Interfaces for Musical Expression (NIME), the International Conference on Auditory Display (ICAD), and the International Computer Music Conference (ICMC). Through collaborations with various digital media artists, he has participated in exhibitions and commissioned projects at major exhibition spaces in South Korea, including the Museum of Contemporary Art Busan (MoCA), Dongdaemun Design Plaza (DDP), and Lotte Gallery Avenuel Art Hall.