Marco Donnarumma (DE/IT) / Corpus Nil
Corpus Nil is a performance exploring hybrid forms of identity and musicianship through an intense and ritualistic interaction between an artificially intelligent musical instrument, a human body, and sound.
A naked player performs a tense choreography which gradually morphs his body. Two types of wearable biosensors transmit data from his body to a software. Chip microphones capture sounds from muscles and internal organs (mechanomyogram or MMG) and electrodes capture muscle voltages (electromyogram or EMG).
The instrument re-synthesizes sounds produced within the performer’s body (between 1-40 Hz) by orchestrating a feedback network of twenty digital oscillators. Concurrently, the instrument learns the nuances of the performer’s movement (muscular tension, gesture abruptness, rate of relaxation) and chooses how to vary the musical output.
The player cannot control the instrument, but only learn how to affect it and be affected by it. The piece discards conventional performer-instrument relationships–founded on the performer’s full control of the instrument–in favor of an unstable corporeal engagement between the two.
credit: tom mesic
Marco Donnarumma (DE/IT) / Corpus Nil
Corpus Nil is a performance exploring hybrid forms of identity and musicianship through an intense and ritualistic interaction between an artificially intelligent musical instrument, a human body, and sound.
A naked player performs a tense choreography which gradually morphs his body. Two types of wearable biosensors transmit data from his body to a software. Chip microphones capture sounds from muscles and internal organs (mechanomyogram or MMG) and electrodes capture muscle voltages (electromyogram or EMG).
The instrument re-synthesizes sounds produced within the performer’s body (between 1-40 Hz) by orchestrating a feedback network of twenty digital oscillators. Concurrently, the instrument learns the nuances of the performer’s movement (muscular tension, gesture abruptness, rate of relaxation) and chooses how to vary the musical output.
The player cannot control the instrument, but only learn how to affect it and be affected by it. The piece discards conventional performer-instrument relationships–founded on the performer’s full control of the instrument–in favor of an unstable corporeal engagement between the two.
credit: tom mesic