ENSAMBLE TERRESTE [2018]
El ensamble terrestre es un instrumento mecano-sonoro conformado por 4 teponaztles, un sistema electrónico y un sistema de software para adquisición de datos del sistema sismológico nacional. Ensamble terrestre forma parte de una línea de investigación que aborda la convergencia de las tecnologías ancestrales con las contemporáneas a partir de una serie de procesos de traducción entre fuerzas físicas y datos materializados en sonido.
Comisionada para la muestra “Resurrecciones de la Materia” Ex Teresa Arte Actual Curaduría a cargo de Voltaje Prieto. Ciudad de México 2018.
[ REPOSITORIO] [REGISTRO FOTOGRÁFICO]
SPECULATIVE COMMUNICATIONS [2017]
WORK IN PROGRESS
A machine that can observe and learn from a microorganism and uses the data arising from its behavioural patterns as a source of composition for an audiovisual score. This project is focused on the creation of an artificial intelligence that has the ability to identify repeated coordinated actions inside biological cultures. The AI stores and transforms these actions in to events to which it assigns different musical and visual gestures creating an auto-generative composition according to the decision making logic it produces through time. To accomplish this we will development an analog signal collector and transmission device able to perform its own biological maintenance and an audiovisual platform allowing the expression of these biological signals. The resulting composition will be transmitted live via a server channel where the coevolution process can be monitored in real time. Inspired by research centres such as SETI (Search for extraterrestrial intelligence), Speculative Communications is part a research space for non anthropocentric communication and part a non-human intelligence auto-generative system.
Project funded by: National Fund for Culture and the Arts Mexico, Laboratorio arte alameda, MEDIALAB-PRADO
[ VISIT THE PROJECT SITE ] [ REPOSITORY ]
RELATED WORK:
MICRO-RHYTHMS
ENERGY BENDING LAB
PHYCHIP
NON-HUMAN RHYTHMS
GFP SCREEN
GEOBACTER MICROPULSE
SINTONÍA DEL RIO [2017]
Sintonía del Río (River Tuning) is a mechano-acoustic instrument inspired by the Mapuche cosmogony and musical structures. It is a mechanical drum (cultrún) ensemble controlled by droplets of water continuously falling from the Calle Calle River, which is the waterway axis of the Ríos region at Valdivia, Chile. The Cultrún is a local and ancestral instrument used to guide ritual salutations addressed to the elements of nature. For the Mapuche, every ritual is a possibility for the creation of a new rhythmic pattern, frequently improvised, within a 4/4 time signature, which refers to the four elements, all four seasons of the year, the four point of the compass, a sacred number echoing the animist beliefs within their culture.
The instrument comprises twelve cultrún, all designed by different local artisans and representing a unique voice within the ensamble, each contributing with a different tone and texture given by the choice of material and construction method. The system uses step motors that are controlled by water sensors. And in order to attain a generative composition, we’ve developed a reactive code according to the dripping water logic driven by peristaltic pumps. The code has 4 states for each of the 12 drums, 48 different states allowing for a dynamic piece mirroring the river’s own materiality.
Sintonía del Río was conceptualized and developed during a collective laboratory attended by more than 50 children and young people from different schools in Valdivia. We’,ve installed an open space at the public library where we worked together in a series of music, electronic, programming and research workshops over the period of a month.
project funded by National Council for Culture and the Arts Chile.
[ REPOSITORY ] [ PHOTO DOCUMENTATION ]
RELATED WORK:
AIRE CDMX
MAREAS CHILE
SPACE DATA AND NOISE
VOLCANIC MEMORY
CITY LISTENERS
PHYCHIP [2015]
Physarum Chip: Growing Computers from Slime Mould
This innovative project aims to build functional biomorphic computing devices operated by the slime mould Physarum polycephalum. We envisage that research and development centred on novel computing substrates, as self-assembled and fault-tolerant networks will lead to a revolution in the bio-electronics and computer industry. Combined with conventional electronic components in a hybrid chip, Physarum networks will radically improve the performance of digital and analog circuits.
For the PHYCHIP project, Interspecifics was invited as an artistic researcher in the Media Enviroments department at the Bauhaus University in Weimar. Where we developed the Phytracker, a computer vision tool to generate compositions based on the behavior of physaurum.
[ VISITE THE PROJECT SITE ] [ REPOSITORY] [ PHOTO LIBRARY ]
RELATED WORK:
SPECULATIVE COMMUNICATIONS
MICRO-RHYTHMS
ENERGY BENDING LAB
NON-HUMAN RHYTHMS
GFP SCREEN
GEOBACTER MICROPULSE
MAREAS DE CHILE [ 2017 ]
Mareas de Chile es un software desarrollado en python para extrar datos de las 28 estaciones del SHOA ( SERVICIO HIDROGRÁFICO Y OCEANOGRÁFICO DE LA ARMADA) instaladas a lo largo de la costa Chilena. El software permite la transmisión de datos de sensores de temperatura del agua, temperatura del aire, presión atmosférica y humedad relativa. Así como el sensor de presión hidrostática (PRS) y el sensor radar (RAD) que permiten saber la actividad de las mareas. Los datos son organizados por estación y transmitidos en un formato OSC (Open Sound Control) para facilitar su uso tanto en visualizaciones como sonificaciones del comportamiento del mar.
Proyecto desarrollado con el apoyo del Museo de Arte Contemporáneo de Universidad de Chile
RELATED WORK:
SINTONIA DEL RIO
AIRE CDMX
SPACE DATA AND NOISE
VOLCANIC MEMORY
CITY LISTENERS
NON-HUMAN RHYTHMS LAB
El taller aborda el uso de la sonificación de datos biológicos como herramienta para la producción de sonido gestual basado en rítmicas no humanas. Examina este modelo emergente de formato multimodal que transduce y mapea bio señales en parámetros de control de síntesis de sonido que pueden ser utilizados en distintas plataformas tanto digitales como análogas de producción sonora.
Está dirigido a personas interesadas en tecnologías de sonido, nuevas prácticas performáticas y de composición, así como en técnicas experimentales de obtención, análisis y expresión de datos. El taller es resultado de un proyecto de investigación de 3 años que ha sido apoyado por instituciones como la Universidad Bauhaus en Alemania, La UWE en Bristol y la Universidad de Graz como parte del proyecto Phychip.
Se enfoca principalmente en una técnica específica de sonificación conocida como audificación en la que las señales, en este caso de origen biológico, son traducidas a su frecuencia homóloga de sonido. Y experimenta con distintas formas de bioelectricidad a través de la generación de microvoltaje bacteriano a través del desarrollo de herramientas como: – Celda bacteria para análisis de microvoltajes : – Celda de physarum para analisis de resistencias – Software de sonificación en PureData – Software de sonificación con Computer Vision en Processing
El laboratorio ha sido presentado en el Museo Tamayo en la CDMX, PLATOHEDRO en Colombia y como parte del Festival Nuevas Frecuencias en Brasil.
[ DOCUMENTATION TAMAYO ] [ DOCUMENTATION PLATOHEDRO]
AIRE CDMX [ 2016 ]
Aire is a generative work composed for a eight channel system at the Sound Space in Casa del Lago. As a generative work, the piece does not have a fixed structure or a specific duration, insted it is transformed while receiving data from the servers of the atmospheric monitoring system of Mexico City. This data is captured and reused to create an assembly of virtual synthesizers that emit an image or sound reflection of the environmental behavior of the city. For this project we developed a python system that allow us to extract the information from the air quality sensors located at the Ecobici stations in Mexico City.
RELATED WORK:
SINTONIA DEL RIO
MAREAS CHILE
SPACE DATA AND NOISE
VOLCANIC MEMORY
CITY LISTENERS
NON-HUMAN RHYTHMS [2016]
Interspecifics collective live_ Non Human Rhythms featuring Physarum @ Inoculum, CLB Berlin, 2016.
Non-Human Rhythms 1
Non-Human Rhythms 1 is the first of a series of live recordings featuring different micro-organism and their bio-electrical activity translated in to sound, 30 minutes of signals originated in a DIY bacterial fuel cells containing different bacterial consortiums.
Microbial fuel cells harness the power of bacteria and convert energy released in metabolic reactions into electrical energy. The cell consists of two electrodes separated by a semi-permeable membrane submersed in an electrolyte solution. The bacteria break down food wastes and sewage to generate an electric current and continue to replicate producing power indefinitely as long as there is a food source from which get nourished.
The cell is divided into two halves: aerobic and anaerobic. The aerobic half has a positively charged electrode and is bubbled with oxygen, much like a fish tank. The anaerobic half does not have oxygen, allowing a negatively charged electrode to act as the electron receptor for the bacterial processes. In collaboration with Juan David López Hincapié and Adrián Rodriguez García Ph.D from the Technological Development in Electrochemistry Mexico (CIDETEQ).
Non-Human Rhythms 2
Non-Human Rhythms 2 is the second release of a series of live recordings featuring different micro-organism and their bio-electrical activity translated into sound, 4 tracks of a slime mould sonification developed at Bauhaus Uni- versity as part of the Phychip project
Physarum polycephalum is a unicellular organism, an amorphous yellowish mass when in the plasmodial phase of its life cycle that can propagate on a large range of surfaces such as plastics, metals, glass and agar. This multi-headed slime mould feeds on bacteria, spores and other microscopic particles. During its foraging state the plasmodium shift its shape sending out protoplasmic tubes with cytoplasm flowing inside rhythmically ex- panding and contracting in response to simple favorable conditions.
Two main approaches were developed for the sonifica- tion of Physarum. The first one is focused on the ana- log behavior of the organism – bioelectrical activity – and the second one in an optical based pattern recognition software both are Open source hardware and software available on virtual repositories. These two systems en- able the creation of a bio-controller for auditory display purposes where common musical structures like texture, rhythms and phrasing can be selected, using the feeding of bioelectrical activity as the system actuator.
In collaboration with Theresa Schubert from Bauhaus University Weimar and the Phychip project team.
Non-Human Rhythms 3
During the fifth edition of the festival Novas frequencies in Rio de Janeiro, we were invited to perform a laboratory focus on the sonification of the bacteria present on the beaches of Rio. In the laboratory 10 local artists were selected through an open call. For a week we work together enabling a compact version of Bending Energy Lab that allowed them to create an interface between bacteria and their instruments. Thus creating the first non-human rhythms orchestra.
Participants in the laboratory:
Biônicos, David Charles Cole, Felipe Ridolfi, Gama, Henry Schroy, Negalê Jones, peppe de souza e Re Sil, Leslie García, Paloma López.
RELATED WORK:
SPECULATIVE COMMUNICATIONS
MICRO-RHYTHMS
ENERGY BENDING LAB
PHYCHIP
GFP SCREEN
GEOBACTER MICROPULSE
SPACE DATA AND NOISE [2016]
An audiovisual performance created with open data from NASA repositories and radio communication recordings from space missions. An immersive performance inspired by the aesthetics of big data and computer noise where sound travels through an octophonic system and visuals are made with satellite images analysis.
Presented at MUTEK_MX as part of the MusicMakers HackLab 2016
[-REPOSITORY-] [-PHOTO DOCUMENTATION-]
RELATED WORK: