This installation is formed by eight-sided wooden column supported on a metal base. The column contains a series of touch and pressure sensors. When spectators come up to it, touch it or embrace it, different voice recordings are set off. Anterior to the meaning of words themselves, these sounds give expression to different moods: desperation, anguish, pleasure, joy, tenderness... The program makes different combinations of situations, distorting them. The installation is designed to be operated by a single user.
Amongst the many ideas this piece suggests, we can mention two in particular: the expansion of gesture and the emotional dimension. Alfabeto emphasisses the concept of corporeal interfaces which allow the simultaneous control of image, sound and movement, but in this case not limited to the performer, as in Epizoo and Afasia, for example, but extended to the spectator, provoking him or her to become involved.
The substitution of the relation between human beings as a generator of emotions by other elements has a long tradition in artistic manifestations. For instance, we are frequently moved by a piece of music, or cry during films. These artistic creations appeal to our very being, to our mood, causing us to experience a particular emotion. nevertheless, our relation to such situations is almost always a passive one. The idea here is, therefore, to convert a cylinder, through the installation of sensors and a computer system, into a being capable of response, inviting us to change our role as passive receivers. By interacting with the column through gesture, we become active subjects, modulators of vocal temperaments.
Alfabeto 

 

 Use: Two sensors recognise the presence of the spectator in the room, and activate the interactive system. A sensor located at the upper part of the column base identifies the column' s "mood". Organised into five groups, these "moods" are different one from another. This button determines the hierarchy of use so that the other sensors activate only the group of sounds forming each "mood".
There are 20 digital sensors sensitive to touch distributed over the faces of the cone and which activate the different voices. The situation and number of sensors activated determine the onomatopoeias and their "conjugation". The resistance sensors installed at the end corners of the column sides read the pressure of the embrace and distort the voices.

Elements of the installation:
-Orthogonal wooden column, 140 cm high, 40 cm diameter.
The interior of the column contains 4 loudspeakers placed at different heights, and 20 photosensitors. Along edges of the cone along the exterior of the column are 8 pressure sensors.
-A square metal base-step, 150 x 18 cm.
-PC computer with sound card and digital control system of external sensors.
-Lighting.

EPIFANIA / Origen