Drifting in Currents of Currents: A Hydro-Acoustic Interface for Gesture-Driven Neural Sound Synthesis and Entropic Memory

Tak Cheung Hui; Xiaoqiao LI; Chun-ting CHAN; Cheuk-Kit CHUNG

Drifting in Currents of Currents: A Hydro-Acoustic Interface for Gesture-Driven Neural Sound Synthesis and Entropic Memory
Image credit: Tak Cheung Hui; Xiaoqiao LI; Chun-ting CHAN; Cheuk-Kit CHUNG

Abstract:

Drifting in Currents of Currents is an interactive hydro-acoustic system that explores the displacement of Hong Kong’s Tanka (boat people) through gesture, fluid dynamics, and neural sound synthesis. A solo interactor controls two theremin interfaces to drive a motorized XY plotter that drags a hydrophone through a water tank. The resulting water disturbance functions simultaneously as sound material and excitation signal for a neural audio model (RAVE) trained on coastal soundwalks recorded in Tai O and Aberdeen. Rather than reproducing historical vocal materials, textual fragments from documented Saltwater Songs operate as symbolic gating mechanisms within the synthesis pipeline: each fragment triggers a time-limited amplitude envelope that conditions the audibility of neural output without producing vocal sound. Audio is spatialized through multiple transducers attached directly to the tank and pedestal, establishing a physical hydro-acoustic feedback loop. Grounded in theories of cosmotechnics and wet ontology, and informed by perspectives on machine learning as a creative musical tool, the system frames memory as an entropic, materially mediated process—one that resists retrieval and remains perceptible only through instability, latency, and drift.