Synthetic Harmonies: an approach to musical semiosis by means of cellular automata

This paper deals with a software environment based on cellular automata devoted to musical experimentation, realised through a methodology by which, mathematical structures, produced by AL models, the general theory of signs, as proposed by Charles Peirce and music, which Consists of acoustic and perceptual relationships are connected. The main features of this environment are the following:
1. semiotics and musical language as tools for reading and interpreting mathematical configurations generated by cellular automata and other AL models;

2. musical expression as creative artefacts;

3. artificial universes as contexts in which to detect perceptual patterns and the correlated emotions music produces;

4. experimentations in aural perception in humans as a method for evolving musical artefacts.

We can know the real world which is near us and the artificial world which is in the computer only by means of thought. Artificial worlds can be equivalent to the phenomenological world and both could be manipulated and organised by thought. We have to apply to artificial worlds the same method humans have developed in organising and giving meanings to the physical world. It'll be necessary to detect patterns generated by Artificial Life machines and to give them meanings. We are trying to apply this methodology through mathematics and music, combining them in a semiotic approach.