Audio-Visual Performance
This sketch for an artwork is based on my previous work Bodies Commodities and is aimed to further build on the concept. Please review the description of this other work for context. This text is a bit rough; -it is a sketch. It is based on the first version of BC that was premiered at Konstfack Stockholm.
1. Proof of Concept: Bodies Commodities
An audiovisual performance where I exploratively exploit bodies to improvise a soundscape based on a recording where I say “Bodies Commodities”.
Film clips from the closing exhibition:
Bodies Commodities was created through Konstfack’s Programming For Artist 2021-2022 course
This work is a raw material where I see potential, the intention now is to get to a new place.
The work Bodies Commodities is sound-centered, the performative act means that I exploit bodies, use them as tools, to create a sound work. In the process, I stop seeing the bodies as a representation of people, but come to see them only as tools for my purpose, to create a sound work. I bring the limbs of the body to unnatural positions, drag the bodies around, throw them, stack them all to explore and control the soundscape. I explore using my speaking voice and words as raw material.
Technically, I use the game engine Unity3d, Blender 3d, the software PureData and 3-d models downloaded from Sketchfab. Using Unity3d’s script capabilities, I transfer the coordination data of the models’ body parts to Pd, via UDP (User Datagram Protocol). In Puredata I use in this case the phase vocoder in combination with my recorded voice. The interaction between HID, 3d model and sound synthesis works very well, it is precise and direct. When I interact, I feel that I have a lot of control over the expression.
The technical nature of the work in the form of equipment, which in principle does not need to be more than a laptop, speakers, projector and a stage, opens up the possibility to tour easily and also results in lower production costs per performance. Using 3d game engine also opens up for greater exposure outside the art world.
This is the thematic and technical base that I want to use to create a new well-developed work of high artistic quality. I intend and hope that the end result will be something that I could not imagine at this point.
2. vision _exploit
The work is a process where I carry out an action to compose a sound work. That process involves me manipulating 3d characters that are linked to sounds. Visually, you see how the 3d models shift from representing some kind of character to being objectified and reduced to becoming a tool.
I intend to explore more and different types of 3d models- different genders, binary and non-binary, different ages, real and unreal.
At Sketchfab.com (and many other places online) there are large amounts of 3d models that can be downloaded in whole or in part for your own use. Here I will use different types of characters and objects with the intention of creating an in-depth narrative. I think I will build different scenes that I move between where different types of processes take place.
I want to work with the narrative possibilities that this environment offers and how I can relate to theories like Brecht’s Epic Theater and Antonin Artaud’s Theater of Cruelty or performance artists and body-focused art with violent elements like Gunter Brus and ORLAN. I want to work with how my own voice can be used and look at the text-sound composers around Fylkingen and the Elektronmusikstudion in Stockholm, such as Henri Chopin and Åke Hodell. I am inspired by 3d visual artists such as Jacolby Satterwhite and Nikita Diakur.
Exploitation can involve actual violence against a person, yet describe Big Tech’s practices. My process will involve exploitation in several stages; I will exploit online freeware data like 3d models, harvest digital sounds and exploit it all again in the performance process. A symbolic act, where I exploit and objectify. In the extension, I want to involve another artist who acts together with projection, sound and me.
Summary
Develop and implement an audiovisual performance work
Explore topics such as exploitation, body, violence
Explore interaction with different bodies
Plastic relationship to bodies
Explore and relate to activism
Explore new methods of expression
Explore the relationship with the audience
The work as a performance
Live composition through digital interaction
Performance, Digital, visual, narrative, sound, text
Explore the possibilities of including another performing artist
Appropriating digital resources. 3d models, sound
Use Unity3D, PureData, projection
A radical and new interface for real-time composition/audiovisual performative sound art.
References
Performance, body, violence: Gunter Brus, ORLAN
Text-sound: Henri Chopin, Åke Hodell, Sten Hansson
Narrative, storytelling: Antonin Artaud, Bertolt Brecht
Jacolby Satterwhite – 3d assemblage, Afrofuturism
Nikita Diakur – glitch and sound
Jon Rafman – bodies and violence
https://jonrafman.com/jon-rafman-disasters-under-the-sun/
Jon Nicklas Lundberg 