1444 minutes is the precise time it takes to move from one day to the next. Within this small space of time it’s possible for personal or even a global change to occur. While many of us attempt to plan our lives or predict our individual situational future, much of what happens is left to unknown devices. In this same vein, 1444 minutes is a generative net.art and sound work that is left to an unknown author to score. It is an emergent or behavioral musical system that commits to few parameters.
Composer John Cage worked with a similar system called Chance Operations. Using the I Ching to make compositional and artistic decisions, Cage was able to free himself of his likes, dislikes and personal biases. Embracing this concept, this project allowed chance or fate to author the work.
Over the course of a 24 hour period, the audio heard through the 1444 minutes website emerged live and eventually faded to silence following a path created in the moment through a computer based, generative musical system. The only human input in the works creation was the decision of duration, sounds used in the composition and the site’s background color that changed based on each unique visitor’s computer time stamp.
1444 minutes was live from Feb 2, 2010, 4:34am EST and concluded on February 3, 2010, 4:34am EST. During this time visitors to the site were encouraged to record musical passages, or even the entire work, since the score as a whole, will probably never be heard again in its entirety.