OSCILLA

Oscilla is a performance, developed with the dancer Simone Arganini and the visual designer Akufene. It experiments techniques of human-machine interaction and digital sound orchestration through space in a performing multichannel environment. Through an interactive experience the human gains trust of the machine, through audio-visual distribution in space the algorithm gains multidimensional expression stepping out from the ether: both entities push beyond their expressions. The system developed for this performance is based on a synesthetic system composed of wearable sensors that captures stimulus from the human presence; a complex algorithm learns and decodes datas to react, generating sounds and distributing them in a multichannel system in correlation with the human interaction.

This collaborative project is created by three artists who share a common background of music technology academic studies. They have since taken interest in different fields, still they are brought together by an interest in technology and how it can be used to fuse together different performing arts.

In Oscilla, the research on technology started out for fun, but soon evolved to a tool of exploration around possible relations and interactions. Eventually, it is used as a means of integration between a dance performance, an electronic music live set and a Vjing one in which lights and video are manipulated. The performer wears movement sensors on his body, and data is passed out to softwares specifically programmed and run in real time. Thanks to this system a complex relation between the performer and machine is enacted, an interactive dialogue in which movement, spatialized sound, stage lightning and 3D video are bound together and evolve in relation to one another. These elements are combined in making the environment an augmented space which obeys unknown rules: here stands the performer, who inhabits the scene and his own body and tries to unveil their mystery. In Oscilla research on technology becomes a chance to investigate the quality of relationships: that of human with himself, and that of human and non-human.

The first study of this project has been produced during a residency at Ferrara OFF theater in Ferrara (IT) and it’s going to be presented during Ammutinamenti Festival in Ravenna (IT) and Smart Life Festival in Modena (IT).