COMPOSER LAB & PERSONAL COLLECTION.

Portrait by Carlos Quesada (2019)
Cover Art by Aleksandra Waliszewska

Searching the spirit trough art. Graphic designer & visual artist on the making.

voodoochild/ is a DIY cyberpunk band from Santiago de Chile.
The only human member of the band is  coyarzun, media artist, who is the programmer.
The rest of the band is a chain of software and hardware protocols described below.
The drummer, the bass and the guitar player are different objects which definitions vary almost in every upgrade of the system, and in some way are anonymous.
Completely different is the situation of DonMiguel, the vocalist. Its name was taken from a character from the chilean pop culture that was the icon of a tobacco packaging warning message. DonMiguel can take the voice of Kathy, Kevin16 or SpeakJet depending of the text to speech device available.
voodoochild/ was -among others- inspired by the work of the legendary 386dx and in its first public standalone presentation in 2006 used a Java Free TTS implementation and a PC standard MIDI card output, with coyarzun as front man playing a distorted five string bass. This configuration of TTS+MIDI+human+code, has being the constant of the whole project and defines it in an aesthetical and political way. 
In voodoochild/ the DIY practices are understood as new forms of apocalyptic or urban folklore, with ethical and political implications defining a worldview that, sustained in a critical notion of the technology, questions the current state of things.
During 2012 voodoochild/  presents postFolkCyberPunkDemo, a performance that incorporates SHOUT!, a voice instrument built from a rubber respiratory mask of two ways "hacked" with a DIY voice modulator electronic circuit. This experience leads the research to the use of the human voice as political medium and specifically its appearance in the popular and protest song.
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SOME TECH SPECS
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The core of the system is composed by two applications, one running on Processing and the other on Arduino, both connected via Serial port.
The Arduino application works basically as a 12 or 16 steps sequencer, receiving data from Processing and sending it to a MIDI Out port.
It also has an implementation of Auduino, allowing a 5 potentiometers input and an audio output for the granular synth.
Alternativally you can send notes to the Auduino or the MIDI outputs using a "guitar hero" controller as input.
The Arduino is also connected to a the hardware vocalist of the band, an always-under-construction-breadboard with a Speakjet and a TTS256 circuit.
If there's no Serial communication the Arduino should be able to continue looping or start in a DemoMode.
The Processing application controls the load of the songs/compositions and the visuals. 
Depending of the weather some songs were written as xml files, others as objects. In any case extends a custom VZong class that have an implementation of Promidi and Soundcipher libraries.
If the system lost connection with the hardware vocalist, a Rita TTS routine is implemented. Under this mode, the voices of Kathy and Kevin16 are randomly choosed.
The whole system can be operated from an tablet device using OSC.



Los Angeles-based >>> ecuadorian interdisciplinary artist and researcher 

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