In this performance I use a hybrid electronic system composed by handmade devices and electronic instruments (like the “agofono” or the “optical glove”), computer, Arduino, light controllers, camera flash, desk and pocket lamps,  in order to create a continuous and self-modulating feedback process between sound and light (sound controls light that controls sound and so on), with which I just interfere.

Here three brief teasers of the performance: http://vimeo.com/87267396 http://vimeo.com/87267395 http://vimeo.com/86784783

And here more infos and pics: http://marcocecotto.com/works/squeezing-sounds-out-of-light-part2/


Squeezing Sounds Out Of Light

Excerpt from a live impro for "Poltergeist".
Performers: Marco Cecotto (contact microphone on needles), Ludovico Giro (contact microphone on metal strings).

Marco Cecotto + Ludovico Giro / Poltergeist (excerpt)

Six handmade light-controlled oscillators filtered through Pure Data.

Squeezing Sounds Out of Light (waiting for BYOB Milano)

Interactive sound installation set up for BYOB Milano (14/09/2011).
The system consist in 2 light sensors sticked on the video camera screen, sending their data to a PD patch through Arduino, and controlling the synthesis of various abstract sounds in response to the specific light intensity framed by the video camera.

BYOB Milano (14/09/2011 - field recording - excerpt)

Track spawned by a generative software developed in Pure Data. Starting from a determined set of digital audio tracks, and processing them throw a randomized algorithm, the software spawns undetermined and constantly changing imaginary soundscapes. In this track I've used a set of sounds recorded in Marghera (Venice, Italy) for the Angloazioni Urbane project ( http://goo.gl/s2R5f ).

Deconstructed Soundscapes n.0 - Marghera

Eno & Byrne's "America Is Waiting" read by a damaged Aiwa NSX-E5M CD player. Just recorded in my kitchen!

Laser Trouble

This track is realized using a generative software implemented for "Trashing Sounds", an interactive sound installation for prepared garbage bins setted up on the occasion of Artefatto2012, Trieste. Starting from three different libraries containig sounds of recycling, organic and sound waste (glitches, computer errors, etc.), the generative software links together the libraries files by means of three random algorithms, spawning three different flows of sounds. In the context of the interactive sound installation the visitors can trigger each sound flow opening (consequentially or simultaniously) the respective garbage bin. In this track the three spawned flows of sounds are consequentials (recycling waste, organic waste and sound waste); there is also a binaural spatialization, live performed (hence, HEADPHONES ARE REQUIRED).

TRASHING SOUNDS [binaural]

This is an audio documentation of an audio feedback-based installation.

Here you can find a video documentation of the same installation: https://vimeo.com/62904221

The core unit of Inner Voices is the built-in audio system of a common computer, and a "seed": a freeware application software implemented in Pure Data.

HOW IT WORKS

Audio feedback is the main principle involved.
The sound captured by the computer's microphone is digitally processed by means of: a band pass filter, a pulse width modulator, a granular synthesizer, and a stereo reverb, each one with the values of the main parameters randomly determined. Every 15 seconds, the application software turns on the microphone, raises the speaker's volume up to a value between 0.9 and 1, and changes randomly the values of the audio processes. After 15 seconds it turns off the microphone and lowers the speaker's volume down to 0 for 0.25 seconds. After that it restarts the cycle. In this way every 15 seconds a new larsen could happen (or not!). The sonic features of the sound event are determined by: the physics features of the  computer's audio system; the values of the electroacoustic process; the specific nature of the environment where the installation takes place, the particular position of the computer in this space, the number of computers involved. Each larsen is accompany with a colored light flickering on the computer screen, in response to the audio feedback's raw pitch and amplitude.
 
INNER VOICES can be realized using minimum one computer up to any number of computers, by anyone, in any place, in any configuration, for any duration.

In this version of the installation I’ve used 8 computers: 6 laptops with the built-in audio system; 1 laptop with the built-in microphone, external loudspeakers and video projector; 1 iMac with external microphone and external loudspeakers and subwoofer.

The aesthetical aims of this interactive sound installation are: to look at an everyday device like the computer (commonly used in an instrumental way) as a subject endowed with an own inner voice; to create a situation where these subjects can sonically interact with the surrounding environment; to leave these new subjects free enough to express their own behaviour; to spark an indeterminate, self-producing and evolving process.

INNER VOICES. A conversation

The "Inner Voices" project is going on (for the project description see: http://marcocecotto.com/works/inner-voices/).

That's a new recording of a single computer playing a "solo" in the central hall of the Parco Foundation (Treviso, Italy). I really enjoy the hall's reverb.

The computer's sound system was composed by a cheap microphone, an external amplifier, 2 speakers and 1 subwoofer.


INNER VOICES - A Monologue #1

The "Inner Voices" project is going on (for the project description see: marcocecotto.com/works/inner-voices/).

That's a new recording of a single computer playing a "solo" in the central hall of the Parco Foundation (Treviso, Italy). I really enjoy the hall's reverb.

The computer's sound system was composed by a cheap microphone, an external amplifier with frequency filters, and two 3-way speakers.

INNER VOICES - A Monologue #2

I developed my sound art and experimental music research in parallel with my  philosophy studies, thinking about each one of this two fields like a different way to look at the same thing, using one in order to explain the other, and vicevaersa.
My artistic practice has been deeply influenced by the John Cage's "aesthetics of listening", based on the experience of silence, and by the David Tudor's "aesthetics of tool kit", developed through his training in indeterminacy and his pioneering practice in live electronics using custom devices. 
Their conception of music like a social and non-hierarchical activity, and their efforts to break down the traditional distinction between different disciplines, led me to consider multimedia installations like a more contemporary and complex way to compose using technology and engineering techniques like trans-disciplinary tools. I tend to consider this kind of tools as not-given instruments, trying to re-invent them in order to obtain unpredictable results, according with the aesthetics of indeterminacy that underlies all my works.
Coherently with this approch, my artistic research is presently aimed, on the one hand, at the auditory exploration of soundscapes and complex systems, and, on the other hand, at the construction of handmade electronic instruments and at the use of FLOSS (Free/Libre/Open Source Software) in A/V performances and multimedia installations.