Tagging a selfish primordial broth
Self-transmission, reflection through different languages. spaces, people, codes and media.
Misunderstanding, stereotypes, lost in translation, data-loss and symbolic representations .
A kind of forewords
For this part of the module of DM8002 I really want to push myself out on things that I didn’t experienced before: sing performance, network-based performance and web&jitter objects in Max/MSP, through a basic application.
My first approach could be outlined in this way:
My voice——>Tag/written text external input response
—–> google translate —–> tag/language score based —-> musical performer —–> audio analysis —–> digital video
More then use audio impulses of my voice, I started to meditate about a personal connection between me and audio realm, that is surely mediated by the music language, as a signifier.
Then I tryed to think about my musical background and the fictitious importance of written music code had in my life, as a kind of instructions needed to be done in order to produce sounds and repetition of sounds through repetition of gestures of repeated code of repetitive music and repeated days, and repetition, and repetition…
Outlining the idea
This is an attempt to summarize the process of realization of the work submitted for the “Echoes” exhibition, through several steps:
Physical space number 1:
1. Me singing, without a mic, a 1970 song [Il Galeone, by Paola Nicolazzi based on the omonymous poem, written by the anarchy poet Belgrado Pedrini in the jail of Fossombrone (Italy)]*.
2. To British users is asked to write text messages on a computer with a Max/MSP patch running on it. The text must be about their feelings and thoughts on the song they are listening by me in real time.
Web Space:
3. The text is sent from Max/MSP text input box** to a Twitter/Web page, in order to work as a kind of meta-score for a musical performer located in the physical space number 2.
Physical space number 2:
4. The twitter messages are automatically translated in the German language by Google Translate and showed through a browser on a computer.
5. To a music performer (a German saxophonist) is asked to react and improvise to the text he reads on the browser.
6. The audio is taken by a mic and sent through Skype to the computer in the physical space number 1.
Physical space number 1:
7. In the same Max/MSP patch used to send text messages by the user, an audio analyzer is running in order to determine the pitch and the amplitude of the audio transmitted by the musical performer through Skype.
8. These data is working as input for realize a text visualization of a real-time aphabetic score extrapolated by the music performer, obtained through Jitter objects in Max/MSP, and showed on a side window in the same computer that is used for sent text messages. The music notation choose is the German alphabetic system (A, B, C, D, E, F, G, H).
*This song is a good metaphor about the actual social situation of my city, Taranto, and it is quite used by the young citizens like a kind of deep and emotional hymn. I will write about it on another post.
** Due to proxies problems in the Echoes exhibition I use a Twitter client outside Max/MSP.