Sounds of the Americans is an audiovisual experiment involving photographer Robert Frank's landmark book, The Americans. The following sounds and accompanying images are the result of a 2-step transformative process:
Convert each photograph into audio using specialized software
Take the same audio and feed it through a spectrograph in order to recreate the original image
Photographs (or any other form of imagery) can be converted into audio. The photo's tones and forms are translated into various frequencies. Depending on the visual complexity of the image, the sounds generated will range from tranquil to chaotic, from peaceful to ominous, from soft to severe.
We can also regenerate the original photograph using its respective audio. With the aid of spectrograph software, the sound of each photo creates a crude and murky approximation of the initial image. The level of degradation varies depending on how the sound gets interpreted by the software. The result is a type of image that is both familiar and yet no longer photographic in its nature.
All 83 photographs contained within the pages of The Americans have undergone this process and are presented here in the book's original running order. While many of their details have become obscured to the point of being lost, the layer of audio allows the viewer/listener to experience the images in an entirely new manner, perhaps leading to different interpretations and unintended meanings.
Parade — Hoboken, New Jersey
City fathers — Hoboken, New Jersey
Political rally — Chicago
Funeral — St. Helena, South Carolina
Navy Recruiting Station, Post Office — Butte, Montana
En route from New York to Washington, Club Car
Movie premiere — Hollywood
Candy store — New York City
Charleston, South Carolina
Yom Kippur — East River, New York City
Fourth of July — Jay, New York
Canal Street — New Orleans
Rooming house — Bunker Hill, Los Angeles
Yale Commencement — New Haven Green, New Haven, Connecticut
Cafe — Beaufort, South Carolina
Georgetown, South Carolina
Hotel Lobby — Miami Beach
View from hotel window — Butte, Montana
Metropolitan Life Insurance Building — New York City
Jehovah's Witness — Los Angeles
U.S. 30 between Ogallala and North Platte, Nebraska
U.S. 91, leaving Blackfoot, Idaho
Covered car — Long Beach, California
Car accident — U.S. 66, between Winslow and Flagstaff, Arizona
Barber shop through screen door — McClellanville, South Carolina
Backyard — Venice West, California
Luncheonette — Butte, Montana
Restaurant — U.S. 1 leaving Columbia, South Carolina
Mississipi River, Baton Rouge, Louisiana
San Francis, gas station, and City Hall — Los Angeles
Crosses at scene of highway accident — U.S. 91, Idaho
Convention hall — Chicago
Men's room, railway station — Memphis, Tennessee
Cocktail party — New York City
Funeral — St. Helena, South Carolina
Chinese cemetary — San Francisco
Political rally — Chicago
Store window — Washington, D.C.
Television Studio — Burbank California
Department store — Lincoln, Nebraska
Movie premiere — Hollywood
Charity ball — New York City
Cafeteria — San Francisco
Coffee shop, railway station — Indianapolis
Public Park — Cleveland, Ohio
Courthouse square — Elizabethville, South Carolina
Picnic ground — Glendale, California
Public park — Ann Arbor, Michigan
U.S. 90, en route to Del Rio, Texas