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Mariela Cádiz
with the collaboration
of Kent Clelland
Levántate (Rise)
Spain / USA
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Levántate (Rise)
Description of the project
"Levántate" is an interactive audiovisual installation rooted in the concept of artificial life inasmuch as it is a reflection on artificial death. In this art project the dissolution of the limits between life and death are being constantly modified.
All the elements in the installation space are interconnected and thought of as parts of an artificial death system. 2 computers, 2 electronic hearts connected in a permanent transfusion of data, are being fed live sounds from a microphone hidden in the darkness that captures the momentum of the present. Its live input is used by both computers to process in real-time what is seen and heard.
When entering the installation, the only source of light the spectator can see is the electronic image of a female body in a perpetual state of digital decomposition that is projected on the physical symbolic representation of a dead body: a sarcophagus.
The projected body never ceases to decompose, there is never a beginning (an intact body) nor an end (the disappearance of the body). There is no starting point, no conclusion, no possible miracle that will rise the body from the dead... only change... transmutation... decomposition... recomposition and transformation.
This process of undying disintegration is created in real-time by the image processing computing heart and it’s nurtured, artificially sustained 'alive' through the sounds present in the space.
The second computing heart is processing in real-time an algorithmic computer music composition that provides a constant stream of digitally decomposed voices in the installation space. Mixed into this ever changing sonic texture is a unique audio feedback interactive system that re-records its output together with the presence of the audience. By using the microphone to capture the verbal resonances of the public and recycling them as new source materials for acoustical deterioration, the human emotional element is also injected into the sound computing system.
As spectators, we are witnesses who, at the same time, become a part of the interactive system. If we move or speak in the installation space, the decomposing body will subtly respond to our noises and voices and, in time, we will hear our own voices mixed into the computer music composition, slowly decomposing and dying.
As the microphone continues to pick up live sounds and sending them to both computers, as the computer music interactive composition continues to incorporate the live sounds and decomposing them, as the body's disintegration subsists on digesting all live data input, the installation becomes a never ending, ever changing, metaphor of death.
Technical information
Hardware:
- 2 computers:
> 1 computer processes digital VIDEO
> 1 computer processes digital SOUND
- 2 Midi interfaces
- 1 Microphone
- 1 Sound mixer
- 1 Amplifier and 4 loudspeakers
- 1 Video-projector
Software:
- Programming environment software: MAX/MSP
- Image processing software: Videodelic
- Real-time sound processing software: NI-Spektral Delay
The video computer processes in real-time the electronic image of the decomposing body. Pre-processed movies, still images and colour palettes provide the imaging source materials for Videodelic. The live audio input from the microphone is split into four frequency bands (bass, medium, medium high and high) whose amplitude is used to control effect parameters together with MIDI control values received from the sound processing computer.
The sound computer processes in real-time an algorithmic computer music composition created by Kent Clelland MAX that provides a constant stream of digitally decomposed voices in the installation space.
A palette of recorded materials are used in a stochastic composition comprising more than 1.5 million permutations based on a single theme, ensuring that the music composition is as devolving and as continually changing as the image processing.
"Levántate" is a computer music interactive composition fully rooted in the concept of resonance. The audio materials presented by the installation are re-recorded (recycled) into the system and will inherently bear acoustical signatures of all elements involved.
Firstly, the 3 physical structures which directly influence the acoustical resonance are the room acoustics and the technical acoustic signatures of both the input device (the microphone), and the output devices (the loudspeakers).
The second hierarchical level of resonance is that of the audience. By using the verbal resonances of the public and recycling them into the computer music composition as new source materials for audio-acoustical deterioration, we create not only a subtle and intuitive interactive system, we are also injecting the human emotional element into it.
Finally, the third hierarchy of resonance is ocurring inside of the computer program which is the sound heart of the "Levántate" system. This computer program is handling the recording and playback of the audio recycling feedback system. The Digital audio which is recorded onto the computer is analyzed in real-time for its resonant qualities and subjected to acoustical filters (frequency deteriorations). This 'deterioration of resonance' process is then inserted with a variable latency between the input and the output of the system.
Simultaneously, the sound computing program sends MIDI data to the video processing computer to provide different parameter controls as well as randomly triggering the imaging source materials that the video processing software uses to process the digital descomposition of the body in real-time together with the live input from the microphone.
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