Sound Obsessed

R&D for the piece began in lockdown through late night internet explorations learning web coding and visual machine learning whilst experiencing sleep deprivation and questioning mental health in relation to the machine.

By documenting the techno-emotional states experienced such as anxiety and inertia, through the creation of audiovisual vignettes. The piece draws on critical inspiration from 24/7, Jonathan Crary, a book positing sleep as the last defence against capitalism and MITs Dream Lab research into sleep sound implantation. This video is the lead SLEEPSTATES album artwork accompanied by the Hypnabyte track which is the global audio on the Control interface on the net-art piece.

SLEEPSTATES.NET is a browser based work where the user navigates to different states of algorithmic slumber, a sleep-cycle of audiovisual interactions that takeover their screen. Exploring themes of machine addiction and autonomy, sleep sanctity, the networked condition and how citizens are subjected to emotion extraction via platform capitalism, these dream transmissions journey through the techno- emotional states of slumber we experience between humans and machines late at night.

Users experience these AV screen-takeovers and interact with the interface via checking their slumber status and machine addiction levels. Finally they are asked to join SONAMB in defending sleep by transmitting their frequency and breathing into the machine. An audio reactive noise field appears where they contribute to a collective white noise sleep aid.

This net-art piece accompanies SLEEPSTATES, the debut album from SONAMB, the new music project from Manchester sound artist Vicky Clarke and features sounds from the record across the platform.