ecstasy
- 2020 - ongoing
- sound installation
- ride cymbal, cymbal stand, electromagnet, neodymium magnet, contact microphone, custom stand, audio amplifier, soundcard, DSP, custom software, cables
- dimensions variable
Autonomous sound installation based on a feedback system and neural network for cymbal, electromagnet, and microphone. The cymbal is pulsed and set into vibration without ever being touched.It is excited by an electromagnet that generates an electromagnetic field to which a small magnet applied to the cymbal reacts, causing it to vibrate. The resulting sound waves are captured by a microphone and digitally processed through an algorithm based on modulated delay lines, nonlinear syntheses techniques, and a neural network. The processed signal is played back again by the electromagnet, establishing a new state of vibration of the cymbal and so on in a closed loop.
From general, superficial listening, the installation generates a round, clear sound that fills the space and can be likened to the relaxing, healing sounds produced by the friction of Tibetan bowls during meditation rituals, with abrupt sound incursions and deviations due to the algorithm that repeatedly seeks to destabilize the acoustic nature of the work. the installation does not involve any kind of interaction with the user or other direct data from the external environment: it represents a world of its own, a closed, finite universe that is constantly being listened to and analyzed through a neural network, that perpetually challenges its own internal balance with dynamic and spectral drifts - between ecstasy and trance - and that is disciplined by internal rules that guarantee constantly moving behavior. It is precisely this dynamism, based on an electro-magnetic-acoustic feedback system, that proves necessary, for it is what enables the work to remain in constant equilibrium and to stem the potential drifts that emerge from its core.
The germ from which the original idea for Ecstasy was born is part of a broader research on sound and meditation from an ethnomusicological and post-colonialist perspective, particularly after attending anthropologist Ernesto De Martino's work on ritual in Southern Italy, and drawing on the text "Music and Trance" by French ethnomusicologist Gilbert Rouget, devoted to the relationships between music and the phenomena of possession, and on a reflection between technology, magic and the construction of metaphysics, informed by the thought of philosopher Federico Campagna. By the term "ecstasy" I mean here a state of stillness and calm fullness, almost of veneration, for which the etymology indicates the process of coming out of oneself to contemplate mentally, freeing oneself from physical burden. On the other hand, with the noun "trance" I define a state of agitation, induced chaos, exaltation and excitement that fully involves the physical and bodily dimensions. Between these two poles, in balance, lives and acoustically manifests the installation Ecstasy, the purpose of which is to preserve its state of calm contemplation by curbing the potential emergence of a convulsive and chaotic state that periodically emerges spontaneously from the algorithm. The aesthetic representation, through sound, of a meditative and contemplative effort is a dimension in which I am interested both through artistic research on sound and through a personal path of study of Middle Eastern mystical traditions and practices.