For the composition I would like to create something using the wireless cybernetic MIDI controller, which i have been developing from September 2023. Since then I achieved various advancements and figured out a lot of flaws.
Last week I travelled to Czech Republic and I joined two collaborations. I wanted to experiment with, how it is to play with other musicians. Sonokinesis suit and gloves are at this stage simply MIDI controllers. They don’t generate any sound itself but only wirelessly control parameters within the DAW Ableton Live.
In Brno I have performed on 9th May 2024 at Rello Il Torrefattore, Rybarska 13, Brno. The venue is primarily coffee roasterty but it resides in the same building as Bastl Instruments, worldwide renown developer of Eurorack modules. A lot of experimental musicians and sound artists naturally gravitates towards this quite hidden and not very known venue.
We have built improvised octophonic ring in the garden and two friends of mine, Valentino and Jakub, were playing their modular systems and sending me two stereo signals. Movements of my limbs, head and fingers were effecting and modulating their audio signals and overall we have created improvised noise-ambient spatial soundscape.
During the performance I have realised the importance of spatial setup for the project. It could certainly be used in stereo or in ambisonics, however I believe that since the body exists in 3D space, the whole performance should exist in the space sonically as well. Therefore I will aim for spatial setup as much as it will be in future possible.
Next performance took place in small bar KMart in Ostrava on Friday 10th May. This time I joined with my cybernetic wireless MIDI controller noise and techno musician Jeronym Bartos aka Laboratorium Expiravit and violinist, vocalist Samuela aka Soleom.
The situation was fairly similar. They were sending me their audio signals and I was modulating them with the movement of my body, this time in quadrophonic setup. Due to nature of their musical taste we have created an improvised dark ambient soundscape.
At this stage I have been thinking how different is this approach from what I have been used to up until now. My body is becoming musical instrument in the sphere of electronically produced live music. I have never been a dancer however during both performances I have been acting and then also reacting back on sonic situations which emerged. From the choreographic point of view I have no idea how the performance could be perceived as I feel I am in the stage getting to know my new instrument and also getting to know what my own body can do in the sonic context.