November 2024 marks the start of the TANGIBLE MUSIC CLUB at Stadtwerkstatt - as a new series and as a cooperation between the Tangible Music Lab and Stadtwerkstatt.
With a series of events and performances, the TANGIBLE MUSIC CLUB aims to build a network for interactive electronic music in Linz and to address the trend towards self-built electronic musical instruments and interfaces in the contemporary music and club scenes. With the expertise of the University of Art, the invited artists and the STWST, projects and artists will be shown and new presentation formats for innovative musical instruments will be jointly promoted.
Start: November 20, 2024, runs as a series until 2025.
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Semilla (Seed)
The mystery of the process is latent: an oval interface in front of the performer, who carefully places a maize seed on the surface. When moved, it becomes evident that its position affects the sound, opening a new »scene« with each change of state. More seeds are slowly added, which in turn are visualized synchronically. Synthesized sounds oscillate between a wide range of frequencies, making the space vibrate. The audience and the concentric display of 12 speakers of the Ottosonics sound spacialization system surround the two artists.
In the same way that in this setting the maize seeds influence a digital instrument for sound generation, they symbolize and establish a link to an ancestral past. Since time immemorial, maize has been fundamental in Mesoamerican peoples, as a primary food and sustenance, as well as a central symbol in their worldview, connected to rituals and traditional ceremonies. Placed at the center of the action, a cross-temporal connection redefines the present narrative.
The setting mentioned above is the tangible interface of »SEMILLA AI«, a synthesizer that uses artificial neural networks to produce sound, developed by HEXORCISMOS, with the intention to open up or make accessible the »black box« of artificial intelligence. At the same time,
it uses the Mesoamerican ancient-contemporary divination practice known as »Mook pajk wëjwë« from the Ayöök (Mixe) area of Oaxaca, Mexico, in which the reading of maize seeds is used to provide insights about time and space. The relation between AI and a divination practice determines the interrelations among instruments and performer, and thus its production of meaning.
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Hexorcismos (Foto: Guxor)
Interface
The interface uses computer vision (for pattern recognition) to translate the graphical input, in this case the arrangement of seeds, to parameters of latent space. The neural network is trained with a database of percussion, string instrument »cümbüș«, Mexican folk music and voices, which inform the aesthetics of the synthesized output. As stated by Moisés, these references are not used with the intention to embellish the technology, but rather to use the tool for exploring the possibilities within these genres and the liminal spaces that unfold from an imagined juxtaposition.
Unlike analog instruments that are deterministic in terms of the gesture that produces sound, playing this instrument has an effect on numerical information, which affects parameters of the neural network. Moisés describes the process as a negotiation: once the input is given by the seeds pattern, the AI offers a set of possibilities, which has an impact on decision-making. The risk, which in itself is part of the intention, lies in not knowing exactly what the outcome will be, and facing the unpredictable. Repetitive practice in playing the instrument allows for a better understanding of the mapped parameters over time. In this case, iteration is a way to learn »how the network represents the sounds inside itself.«
Mirror
The visualization by Laura Adel displays abstract and fluctuating graphics, drawn in pastel colors, almost monochromatic. The image provides another take on the perception of the experience, going hand in hand with the internal narrative that the receptor (viewer) builds along the performance. The parallel between sound and image triggers the speculation about the logic and physics behind the audible layer, and invites you to imagine in which ways these two layers are complementing each other.
Laura calls the tracking of the parameters »subconscious interactivity«, »the one you can feel under the skin, but it is not so visible«. By noticing small variables, she plays to amplify their effects, facilitating their perception and reinforcing the correlation between the two media, without establishing any hierarchies.
In her work, Laura applies the concept of »dialogical disposition«, which implies listening and relating to the context and intentions in a collaboration, keeping alive a dialogue and horizontal exchange. In this case, the visual proposal was defined in correspondence with the structure of the neural network and sound objects of SEMILLA AI. While receiving the audio parameters, the artist makes an expanded version through her own gaze, becoming a mediator in the processing of this information.
The visualization process oscillates between the predictable and unpredictable. Some variables are decided in advance, e.g. the graphic material vs input parameters. However, when connecting all mediums in the live situation, the consequences of the interpolation bring unexpected occurrences. This improvisational aspect requires an attitude of openness and awareness, which becomes a motivation for further exploration. Finding the unexpected in the relation between two or more mediums and languages is part of the beauty in such process.
Narrative
With this project, HEXORCISMOS proposes an accessible way of using random variables in everyday life, questioning our illusory sense of predictability and control over the future. From there, the idea of leaving the specificities of the input to »chance« (seeds disposition) and giving compositional agency to the machine. Nevertheless, this attitude does not imply taking away importance of the decision-making. Moreover it shifts the focus into listening and interpreting, into a dialogical process.
As with other divination methods such as the I CHING or Tarot, an internal narrative develops in the reader, who is able to relate the obtained answers to the context and personal intentions. In this way they become relevant and specific. The iteration of further readings gives depth to an ongoing story, while simultaneously projecting nuances about the present state.
In the Mook pajk wëjwë reading, the maize seeds represent »images (as signs) that can be read as a text (full of symbols), therefore providing a narrative built dialogically by the diviner and the consultant.« (Rojas 2016). In the case of SEMILLA AI, the technical interface makes a first interpretation when translating the maize pattern into coordinates for the neural network, correspondent to sound parameters. The audible feedback projects not only an answer that is intelligible to the senses, but also comes from an archive known to the artist. In this way, a distant past comes back reformulated, in new constellations and meanings.
By making music with these instruments, and understanding rhythm as a code, HEXORCISMOS explores the limits of what can be distorted before it becomes completely abstract and loses its meaning. The addition of noise, the transformation between states, while maintaining a certain reference, frames the liminality in which glitch and new sounds can appear.
From the tempo and the prevailing porous aesthetics, MUTUALISMX invites to a moment of deceleration and densified present, which allows reconsidering pieces of fragmented memory, dreams and presages.
References
Rojas, Araceli, »Reading Maize: A Narrative And Psychological Approach To The Study Of Divination In Mesoamerica«, Journal for the Study of Religions and Ideologies, vol. 15, issue 43 (Spring 2016): 102-124. ISSN: 1583-0039 © SACRI
Matthews, Wade, El instrumento musical: Evolución, gestos y reflexiones, Turner Música, Madrid, 2022
Links:
https://tamlab.kunstuni-linz.at/projects/ottosonics/
https://newcontext.stwst.at/en/projects/tangible_music_club
https://otherpeople.bandcamp.com/album/mutualismx
TAM Club II - Wed, Dec. 11 2024
Amélie Nilles X Boris Shershenkov
More to come at: newcontext.stwst.at/projects/tangible_music_club
