LIT FROM WITHIN – GIN STONE

Lit from Within transforms firefly blink patterns into sound using custom software that reads each flash as a musical event.

A Part of the Field Notes Project Series

An audio/video work that begins with a simple observation: fireflies communicate through light. Each flash carries information; species, timing, duration, and intensity that form a biological language spoken in darkness. This work listens to that language and translates it into sound.
Photosensitivity Warning: This video contains the flashing of fireflies and visual effects that may trigger seizures in individuals with photosensitive epilepsy.

“I shot original video footage of fireflies behind my studio this past summer. I then wrote custom species-recognition code that analyzes each flash signature. When the code was run in a data processing program, it identified several species across my own footage. The timing, duration, and interval patterns are used to identify the species of firefly responsible for each blink. The program then routes and records individual blinks as MIDI musical notes with their own dedicated (species specific) track. The musical scale is of my choosing. The notes are chosen at random by the code. I then gave each track a musical instrument to play from a library of recorded percussion instruments. I created a little ‘dance-off’/’battle of the bands’ crossover. Each firefly species plays its own audible voice in tandem with their visual flashes (in their pursuit of a mate) after I have synced the audio back with the video footage. I augmented the video with effects that render the blinks as bioluminescent forms drifting through a deep blue ground, connecting the firefly visually to jellyfish in an aquarium.”

Special thank you to the “G-Town Church Sampling Project” by Tobias Marberger

To view the media in it’s entirety please email: contact (at) ginstoneart.com

Field Notes:
Date: June 15, 2026
Time: 21:33:33:00
Weather: 62° partly cloudy, 79% humidity
Moon phase: New Moon
Location: Latitude 41° 42’ 37” N Longitude 70° 0’ 34” W
Elevation: 30’/9m above sea level, facing a decline to the south-southwest
Original video shot on an iPhone 16 Pro Max: video capture
Black Magic Software Settings Shutter: 1/30 Frame Rate: 30
Premiere: First round of alteration was to contrast, saved out and midi rendered.
Saved video from that became basis for the following:
Changed settings to increase the contrast, tint, saturation, temp and opacity as layers of video on top of each other. Blurs and glows. Original blue with low opacity over final video with effects. Premiere is Adobe’s film editing and finishing software.
MATLAB: Script movement triggered by flashes, rendered into a track for each species. MATLAB, the language of engineers and scientists, is a programming and numeric computation environment for algorithm development, data analysis, and visualization.
Reaper: A virtual instrument was set and plays back the notes derived from the data. All sound work and production are completed in this program. Reaper is a complete digital audio production application for computers, offering a full multitrack audio and MIDI recording, editing, processing, mixing and mastering toolset.

Toy Glockenspiel A4: Femme Fatale (Photuris sp.): 7 flashes
Bass Drum: Big Dipper (P. pyralis): 8 flashes
Mandolin A3: Synchronous (P. carolinus): 462 flashes
Wood Sticks: Macdermotti (P. macdermotti): 37 flashes
Mandolin G4: Continuous/Unknown: 1,981 flashes
Total Flashes: 2,495