Watch Ominous, an incarnated sound sculpture
Watch the new video of Ominous, the incarnated sound sculpture I recently performed at ICT & Art Connect event at Watermans Centre, in London, UK. This new piece for the Xth Sense plays with the audience perception, creating the illusion of an invisible object molded by whole-body gestures. It is the natural sound of my muscles and its virtual counterpart that blend together into an unstable sonic object. This oscillates between a state of high density and one of violent release. As the listeners imagine the object’s shape by following my gesture, the sonic stimuli induce a perceptual coupling. The listeners see through sound the sculpture which their sight cannot perceive.
Xth Sense biophysical music workshop in New York
On 8-9 March, Reverse Space hosts an Xth Sense workshop on biophysical interactive music and video. During this intensive 2-days course, participants make their own Xth Sense wearable biosensor for interactive sound and video. The Xth Sense is a biotechnology that uses bioacoustic sounds from human bodies for creative digital interaction. The applications of the Xth Sense are manifold: from complex gestural interaction with audio synthesis and sampling, through generation of bioacoustic music, to bodily performance of extended traditional instruments, and communication with external software. On Saturday 8th, I’ll perform some flesh sounds at the same venue. You can subscribe here.
Next performances in New York, Amsterdam and Karlsruhe
Save the dates! On 12nd March in New York, I’ll offer a night of incarnated interactive music hosted by Phil Niblock at the historical venue Experimental Intermedia where I’ll perform the new piece Ominous, amongst other sounds. On Saturday 15th March, I’ll be back at STEIM in Amsterdam, where we have organised a concert night of body-based musical performances of interactive music. The line up includes Marije Baalman, Erfan Abdi, and yours truly. In May (date TBA), will join the awesome Linux Audio Conference at ZKM in Karlsruhe to premiere the first performance for a new musical instrument I’m currently developing. It brings together multimodal biotechnologies and machine learning for the creation of emergent music and sound forms through physical performance. For details check the calendar.
The Xth Sense: Phase #2 launch at LISA Salon, New York
Leaders in Software and Art (LISA, @softwareandart) is a society of creative thinkers centered around monthly salons. The Salon was created to strengthen the community of software and electronic artists worldwide. On Tuesday 11th March, I’ll present the the new phase of the Xth Sense project that aims to nurture a grassroot approach to the development and use of biotechnology across different creative communities. The project is being developed as a joint venture of myself, Heidi Boisvert and Harvestworks in New York, thanks to the Rockefeller Foundation-supported CTE program (Creativity + Technology = Enterprise).
On the press: “Molding sound with flesh” on Create Digital Music
Create Digital Motion, the premiere online magazine for sound and music technology, has just published areview of the new developments of the biophysical music project I started in 2011. It is a great pleasure to realise the project evolution is still a matter of interest in the community after 3 years of incredible events, with performances tours and over 17 workshops worldwide. And keep an eye open for the next wireless, miniaturised version of the Xth Sense hopefully coming out sometimes at the end of the year.