The Brazillian studio, 3bits has re-imagined the history of contemporary electronic with Sync/lost. An installation piece brought to life by two projectors and three subjects armed with Wii-motes and headphones. It guides them through the formation and evolution of prolific electronic genres as well as their sub-genre counterparts.

In developing this installation, their stated intentions:

The project’s objective is to create an interface where users can view all the connections between the main styles of electronic music through visual and audible feedback. The choice is individual and leads to a collective consequence in the spatial visualization of information.

When the user selects a genre it will play a popular song from it and provide expository information regarding the sound under the “Now Playing” yellow bar at the right hand of the projection. This element adds a new dimension to the interface. Instead of just seeing the past and future of specific sounds, the text outlines the pertinent information attributed to each sound.

In the spirit of Sync/lost, a tool for sifting and sorting through the past. 3bits referenced the origins of electronic music through the author Ferruccio Busoni, a pioneer of the genre. In 1911, he published his book Sketch of a New Esthetic of Music where he writes:

…[Dr. Thaddeus Cahill] has constructed a comprehensive apparatus which makes it possible to transform an electric current into a fixed and mathematically exact number of vibrations. As pitch depends on the number of vibrations, and the apparatus may be “set” on any number desired, the infinite gradation of the octave may be accomplished by merely moving a lever corresponding to the pointer of a quadrant. Only a long and careful series of experiments, and a continued training of the ear, can render this unfamiliar material approachable and plastic for the coming generation, and for Art

What Busoni has to say is entirely relevant to the concept of Sync/lost. It allows the user to direct the Wii-mote’s virtual cursor over a genre and displays what it was influenced by and what other movements it influenced through a web of lines. The influencing node is denoted as the “parent” knot and the influenced node is a “child” knot. The installation enables people to observe and easily understand a musical evolution, potentially developing an appreciation for electronic music as a whole.