·~{dRNn}~·

Machinic is about actualizing one instance of a series of combinatorial productive options which already lie on the matter. In that sense the quality of being exists on the matter and not before it, in order words the way the elements and materials are combined and formed is not given in advanced but exerted during the actualization of the process. To separate matter and form, as if they were different entities, divests matter of its productiveness. It is to think of it as dead. The productive assemblages of matter demand of the creator an attitude in which form is not externally imposed to the material but it is teased out of the matter. In a machinic production, a series of processes bring the material to a fluid and fertile state for the emergence of a form.

To listen on-line:
machinic midi data. Ricardo Cedeño Montaña. 2010. Duration: 8:00

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Noisecraft data. Ricardo Cedeño Montaña. 2010. Duration: 4:50

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To download:
machinic midi data 14MB

noisecraft data 8.5MB

This piece experiments and explores with video-games sources of sound. It does exploit the video game as a main source for creation, through using its inner elements. It does not exploit the video games as a environment for performing and creating sound. Instead of participating in the video-game, I use its readymade sound-objects in order to repurpose them in a sound landscape that depicts the tension in the machinic dialogue between player and game. In this work I stop interacting with the video-game object, to explore other aesthetic dimensions in the performance of its elements, not dependent on the conditions and parameters impose by the participation in the video-game. It seeks for new forms and sources in sound creation and experience in digital media.

As a landscape this piece has two different layers in a cybernetic state.  One layer is the game sound and the second one the player sound. The former use Unreal Tournament 2004 as source and the latter use human body sounds as source. Those are the two sonic dimensions of a cybernetic exchange in a video-game playing session, they have to be played simultaneously in an installation arranged for four loudspeakers as can be seen in conceptual drawing, that opens this post.

It is based on the Sonichima concept.

Sound credits:
Unreal Tournament 2004 sounds extracted using: Dragon UnPACKer v 5.2.0b “cinthia” by Alexander Devilliers. Unreal Tournament 2004 by Epic Games

Unreal Tournament original soundtrack by: Kevin Riepl

Human sounds: Heart sounds recorded by Morton E. Tavel, M.D., professor or medicine, Indiana University, School of medicine and consulting cardiologist with Northside Cardiology Inc Indianapolis, USA. Lungsounds recorded by Dr. G. Wuertemberger, Freiburg, Germany and professor R.L.H. Murphy, jr., Boston, USA.

Mixed bY Ricardo Cedeño Montaña.

The first track is already mixed for two loudspeakers, second and third tracks are the two separate layers for performing in the original arrangement. Here they can be downloaded: Human - Machine

I published the following post on sound projects’ blog, some months ago. Even though the time has passed I would like to share with all of you this short playlist. The context of this post had to do with, by that time, the recent death of one of the most influential German composers in the XX century: Karlheinz Stockhausen.

A small playlist I did to complement my previous contribution to this blog, Karlheinz Stockhausen, his contemporaries ( Webern, Boulez, Varèse), and students (Kraftwerk, Can, Hassell). I hope you do enjoy it.

Sound projects: One minute concept. HfK Bremen 12. 2007

My one minute piece. I took three sound from an old semi-destroyed piano, we had at home in our garage, and then attacked its cords with a piece of wood. Those sounds were recorded on a laptop and after that, cleaned and normalized, getting ready to be cut, extended and distorted.

My goals here were to explore two core principles of composition in visual arts but in sound: zoom and symmetry. I extended one of my sources of sound from 0.05s to 30s, then equalised it and again extended up to 60s, it is my bass-drowned background. I use to give some space to this background a repetitive loop after 0:10s it is a mechanic texture. My foreground sound is composed on a complete symmetry, starting with a high pitch sound wrapped on a sine-wave form, after that it appears my central piece of symmetry, this source of sound was split in several pieces that don’t dwell in a stereo space, rather they reside just on one channel either left or right and jump all time from one channel to the other but never sound at the same time in both.

Hope you enjoy this experimental one-minute piece.

I recommend to listen to it either with a headset or with loudspeakers as far away from each other as possible.