Whistlegraph

Nika Simovich Fisher on a TikTok sensation that has attracted an online community of artists and fans.

The artist Jeffrey Scudder has an unusual sketchbook. The pages contain an amalgamation of illustrations, step-by-step instructions, lyrics, and custom page numbers written on every leaf. The sketches are visually noisy, almost synesthetic, as though they can be heard with just one glance. The day we meet, Scudder is on the brink of a Whistlegraph performance, flipping through the score of a recent creation.

A whistlegraph is a performance art piece where an artist records themselves singing and drawing simultaneously. Every line of their drawing has a sound associated with it, and the completed image can be aurally conveyed in a score.

Whistlegraph is also a generative art practice and a pandemic TikTok sensation that has attracted an online community of artists and fans. The term “whistlegraph” encapsulates both the collection of audible parametric illustrations, and the collaborative efforts of Scudder and his fellow artists Camille Klein and Alex Freundlich, who spent most of 2020 working together in a cabin in Ashland, Oregon. According to the trio, their practice “speaks to embodied cognition, art education, and experimental composition for live performance.” Basically, it’s an instructive haiku, but this art practice has introduced unexpected audiences to programming ideas and Conceptual art in a fun and accessible format.

Scudder’s current whistlegraph is centered around a character named “Explodey Head.” It’s an atypical piece, in the sense that it lasts around a minute, whereas most whistlegraphs last for a few seconds. The images are playful and innocent, but layered in poetic themes that explore identity and self expression, which is partially why they resonate with TikTok’s younger demographic. One composition that went viral on the platform a few years ago: "I’m a butterfly. Flapping for you guys. It’s just a costume. I put on in my room."

COSTUMES

VIRGO SEASON