Motion system for a music platform
A medieval visual code became a live interface between sound and image.
Illo developed Araldica as a sound-reactive motion system that began as an internal heraldry-based exploration and evolved into a scalable R&D toolkit. Built in part with Cavalry and expanded through experiments in vibe coding and TouchDesigner, the system translates sound into synchronized visuals and visuals back into generated music. Designed to work across formats—from playlist covers and track artwork to in-app players and large-scale projection mapping—the toolkit uses a consistent language of colour, rhythm, and form. Illo also created separate generative modes for music and podcasts, allowing rhythm, genre, duration, and speaker changes to shape the output automatically.
Insights
- Heraldry is treated as a system of signs rather than a period costume, which lets the project feel contemporary without losing its source.
- The audio to visual tool has clear production value. Rhythm, genre and duration reshape the graphics without manual keyframes, making one expressive language scalable across many tracks and formats.
- The podcast mode proves the rules can follow meaning as well as beat, using a coiling form and colour changes to distinguish speakers.
- Turning colour into notes through TouchDesigner and Ableton is the more speculative half. It is a memorable instrument and demonstration, though even illo acknowledges that the generated music is not yet the finished product.
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