TEMPER: A System for Music Synthesis from Animated Tessellations

The authors discuss the results of research carried out since 1987 at Laboratorio di Informatica Musicale (LIM) involving the association of graphics and music, with special attention to drawings based on tessellations. After a theoretical investigation primarily devoted to the creation of a conceptual framework, the authors developed a prototypal computer program, TEMPER. This program allows for the editing of tessellations and for the definition of performance paths that include the animation of tessellations and the synthesis of music pieces obtained by translating graphic animations.