Soundtrack for Webcams is an audiovisual installation by artist-composer Magnus Bugge that pairs real-time generated soundtracks with open webcam streams. At any given moment, thousands of webcams all over the world actively observe our world.
Most of these cameras are always on, sometimes broadcasting uninterruptedly for years on end.
They capture mundane objects and everyday life, such as traffic jams and office spaces, and broadcast them online in low resolutions, adding jitter, errors and glitches to these monotonous scenes. An aesthetic that we associate with the soulless machinery operating stationary in the background of our information society, and that has become as recognizable to us as the scenes they capture.
Soundtrack for Webcams pairs these live scenes with an audio counterpart that is dynamically evolving. To achieve this, the soundtrack is generated fully automatically on the basis of the editing pace and content of the live video streams. As in films and games, the soundtrack foregrounds our emotional attachment to the subject. Rather than useless machinery staring into nothingness, these cameras suddenly seem to capture something quite significant.
The essay 'Når motsetningene tårner seg opp' by Christian Blom is available to read in our listening library. Curated by Julie Lillelien Porter.