1938

Commissioned to be presented at Bauhaus University in Weimar, Germany.

1938 is an audiovisual, generative, real-time performance about the bombings in Barcelona during that year. For this piece, I decided to reflect on the experiences of the persons who lived this, or similar events. Anybody who has experienced a shocking event can ponder the sounds and images in this work. The concept of the inner strength and mind character that naturally help us overcome situations like this, as a community, group, or at a personal level are the inspiration for this work.

Also, I decided this piece should bring awareness and peace of mind for the viewers. This piece is about reflection, not about bringing back a bad memory. I invite you to appreciate what you are able to learn by assimilating the facts after an experience like this.

I wanted to create a piece that can be performed in real-time, because for me, being in front of an audience makes me and the composition, more expressive. To accomplish this task, I developed a Max/MSP/Jitter patch that helps me to process both audio and video signals to generate the whole piece without pre-recorded arrangements. All manipulation and creation happen in real-time.

To establish a connection with the actual evidence of the events this piece is about, I wanted to use video recordings from the day after the bombing and sounds from today’s Barcelona to process them digitally and be able to perform signal processing and spectral manipulation of both sources. It is interesting to see how persons who are familiar with current Barcelona’s soundscape will get familiar with the sounds, and persons who haven’t visited this city can get an idea of how the city sounds today.

Presented at: “Con el oido en el recuerdo” on December 11th, 2018 at Universitat Pompeu Fabra, Fundación Phonos, Barcelona. (More info here).

The plot of my piece is to go from chaos and confusion to calm and peace through a process of assimilating. It starts with small samples of video and audio from unexpected (random) parts of the audio and video to express the chaotic section. During the performance, I capture some of the generated elements and freeze them using time and spectral processes. It is interesting to see and hear how the media transforms right in front of the viewer, and slowly, with real manipulation from the performer, mutates into a generative piece of rich sounds and geometric and aesthetically pleasant moving images, all taken from the original material.