Garbage Laser is the part of an ongoing collaboration with sound artist Pouya Ehsaei. Presented at Set Experimental Art Events (Tehran, 2015), the performance explores a live, bidirectional feedback system between image and sound. Rooted in a shared interest in the material textures, complex noise and deconstructed electronic music, the work takes discarded objects, garbage, found fragments, as its visual starting point, questioning how this material might be reanimated through computational attention.

Using a custom-built OpenFrameworks application, various found objects are held up to an infrared camera fitted with a visible light-blocking filter, which detects the objects contours in real time using OpenCV. These contours were processed into Delaunay-triangulated forms, which could be frozen or continuously refreshed and then animated in response to live FFT analysis of Ehsaei’s audio. These triangulated structures were sent as ILDA data to an RGB laser, projecting the shapes in coloured light. Simultaneously, the complexity of the visual data and object movement was sent via OSC to Ehsaei’s audio system, influencing effects and generating additional sonic layers, creating a reciprocal audiovisual ecosystem between performers, objects, and code.

This performance resists distinctions between signal and noise, body and machine, garbage and goods. Through the re-purposing of discarded materials as dynamic input sources, Garbage Laser proposes a mode of performance in which responsiveness and transformation emerge from overlooked forms. The work is deeply improvisational, visuals drive sound and sound reshapes visuals; a system of co-authorship between algorithm, environment, and performers.