darina zurkova // riccardo marogna
improvised electroacoustic performance
(2019) 15 – 20′
collaboration with Riccardo Marogna
DINGEN (from Dutch ‘things’, from pronunciation ‘the sound which most of our tools produce’) is an improvised electroacoustic performance which makes use of concrete sounds of various amplified objects and their live electronic manipulations.
DINGEN adapted different types of objects into the percussive palette of sounds as a blank canvas for performers’ improvisation. The main focus is to discover diverse musical gestures and structures by creating the relationships in between three entities – sounding objects themselves, the processed sound and performers, who – as architects of the sound scenes – are also influenced by the processing system itself (and vice versa) within a real time improvisation.
The live electronics environment, programmed in Max/MSP, interacts in different ways with the performers. The acoustic sound is captured by a number of microphones and sensors, and processed through a set of algorithms. The audio input is analysed in order to extract some perceptually-relevant features (e.g. onsets, spectral flux, centroid…). These parameters are then mapped in the processing logic, triggering/activating different processes / manipulations, according to the kind of sonic material. The system implements also some stochastic behaviour, resulting in unexpected responses to the performers’ sonic gestures. This behaviour challenges the improviser and contributes to a kind of dialectic confrontation between the human performers and the machine.