Cobalt Paper

Four fragment shaders share a single microphone. The chrome row offers a switch — warp · tide · chamber · ferro — and the rest of the visible surface is whichever shader is currently picked. Each mode listens differently: some collapse the spectrum to three numbers, others read the full bin array, one looks only for the loudest pitch. The piece is not about audio visualisation as a general idea; it is about four specific ways of looking.

Warp is the original — a domain-warped sine cobweb in the ochre palette. It rewards transients: a clap kicks the field; a sustained note settles it. The other three modes were added to test what audio-reactivity can do besides chase peaks.

Tide is meditative. Bass raises a horizon line; treble agitates the water surface; spectral centroid shifts the sky between dusk and midday. Silence is a flat low-tide at golden hour — a still that earns its place by not being a black canvas.

Chamber is architectural. The piece's only iso-perspective view: a 2D room whose floor fills with cobalt liquid by frequency band — bass on the left, treble on the right — the full FFT laid out as column heights. Sustained loud sound overflows the walls; quiet drains the pool back through the floor.

Ferro is reduced. One or two cobalt spikes pull from a flat floor. The dominant pitch in the input picks the spike's horizontal position; bass volume sets its length. The closest the gallery gets to a single-instrument piece — what plays the spike is whatever is in the room.