Interactive music performance for enhanced body (Xth Sense Bionsensing Technology )

by Marco Donnarumma (IT/UK)

13/09/2013 Friday, 20:00 – 20:30, Studio 54, NAA  

Music for Flesh II (MFII) is a seamless mediation between human biosonic potential and algorithmic composition. By enabling a computer to sense and interact with the muscular sonic potential of human tissues, the work approaches the biological body as a means for computational artistry.

During my performance muscle movements and blood flow produce subcutaneous mechanical oscillations, which are nothing but low frequency sound waves. Two microphone sensors capture the sonic matter created by my limbs and send it to a computer.  This develops an understanding of my kinetic behaviour by *listening* to the friction of my flesh.  Specific gesture, force levels and patterns are identified in real time by the computer; then, according to this information, it manipulates algorithmically the sound of my flesh and diffuses it through an a variable array of loudspeakers. The neural and biological signals that drive the performer's actions become analogous expressive matter, for they emerge as a tangible haunting soundscape. The border between physical and virtual body is blurred and dissolved.