21-09 / 15-12-2024
The idea at the core of this project was how to make these two realms communicate despite the fact that they have always been quite distant from each other, in conflict at times, and rarely, able
to engage in a “friendly” dialogue on equal terms.
The software Real Time has precisely the task of creating such a dialogue. Developed together with LIM, the Laboratory of Musical Informatics of the Statale University of Milan, it aspires to act as a super-consciousness that is tasked with the role of relating the natural acoustic landscape to the human process of writing scores.
How does all of this happen? It begins with a microphone recording that is read by the software which contains a pre-loaded track, a score, which then acts as if it were doing rhythm training exercises (e.g. solfeggio) in real time. When the software recognises that there is a sound in the acoustic environment, a noise that has a frequency close to a known one, then it uses this proximal note.
Differently from what one would expect, no pre-sampling or machine learning devices are employed to investigate the soundscape. In this sense, it is a software that denies itself.
In the gallery’s garden shed, I installed a sound sculpture that I called Joog Box. The word “Joog”derives from the Creole, and it means “noisy”, or “messy”. Thus, it matches the results returned by the real time software which also works within the sculpture, the content of which is related to the composers of the Venetian school. The object itself is made of super-mirrored steel.
It, therefore, mirrors the outer environment. With this work I wanted to further underline the visual relationship at the core of the work: the clash of anthropic culture with nature, which is here embodied by the dialogues of the trees, the garden, the lawn, the musical score, and the compositions contained within the various tracks.
(Alessio de Girolamo)
Curated by Manuela Lietti