Sesamsesam 2017

Date: September 8, 2017

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=reh2wJLzOmE

Jutta Ravenna: Sesamsesam, interactive Sound sculpture

The work was presented in the frame of the Sonifications Festival, Berlin Society for New Musik, 2017

Several oversized number and text displays integrated into the object are linked to various activities of the visitors online and also visually display the simultaneously sonified data, such as duration of stay, log-in, log-out time, „send“ and „receive“.

SesamSesam sonifies WLAN traffic to enable the kinaesthetic grasp of the auditory via physical experiences with data for the listener. This makes the audience as data generator an important part of this work, which is about listening to the network presence in the collective data space and physically influencing the sonic atmosphere. This is done in front of the data sound window via a 3D sensor that scans the immediate gestural interaction, movements and spatial paths, turning the sound sculpture into an instrument that can be played or controlled. In the cone-shaped sensory environment, the constantly changing sound can be „felt“ on three spatial axes in free movements, pushing, rotating, oscillating in gentle lines or short pushes. The visitors explore these „kinetic objects“ in the sensor space with their bodies, and at the same time their movements paint lines of sound in the space.

Technical realisation – Liang Zhipeng and Timo Engel

 

 

Dance Performance

 

Tomoko Mio: Dancing Sound – Conducting Data (2017), three dances with an interactive sound sculpture

 

During the dance performance with Jutta Ravenna’s interactive Data Soundwindow SesamSesam (2017), the role of the dancer will be twofold: first, to create a dance to music which does not yet exist, but will only emerge from the sonified data while the dancer dances. Second, to modify the emergent sound through bodily gestures, like a conductor.

The dance with the spatial sculpture enables the interaction of architectural, sensorially prepared and digital spaces. This in turn allows the visitors to freely switch their attention between those spaces. Above the Data Soundwindow, a centrally located sensor scans the dance moves in three dimensions and makes new spatial movements and sound effects possible. Due to advanced digitalization, minimization and increased complexity, the basic electronic circuits contained in Ravenna’s data sculptures became increasingly immaterial. The artist has therefore created an installation version of her data space as part of her interactive work SesamSesam.

Through her explorations of movement sequences and dance, Tomoko Mio also deals with space. Jutta Ravenna is interested in how the bodily presence of the dancer influences the data space. All dance actions, including rotation, linear or pointillist trajectories and poses or positions are translated into something audible. Technical aspects of the work were developed experimentally by Liang Zhipeng, Tomoko Mio and Jutta Ravenna. The Ravenna-Tomoko collaboration consists of Ravenna’s modular choreographic instructions and Tomoko’s creativity as a dancer and choreographer.

The sensor’s range has a conical form with the following dimensions: height, breadth, depth, volume and form. This ‘room’ is programmed to react to the movement of singular body parts, such as the head, shoulder, hand or knee. Turning, stepping or springing occur spontaneously or in reaction to the constantly transforming sensorial surroundings. The movements are not choreographed and happen as a consequence of this process or intuitively, similar to an improvisation. The connection between dance and the movement of sound means that a certain “listening whilst moving” is required from the dancer, as well as a large physical presence. These skills are also required in order to adapt to the placement of sound objects within the structure of the three-dimensional sound installation.

Movements within the sensorially prepared room call upon events from the internet. Through their voluntarily recorded internet activity, the visitors provide necessary input for the installation: with every login a new frequency from a pre-defined pool of possible frequency deviations will be added to the sound image. Before reaching the Datasoundwindow, the sonified data will be split and divided in relation to its distance from the object within the sound zones. The dancer explores the kinetic objects in the sensorial room with her body. Simultaneously, her movements will be audibly traced in the form of sound trajectories in space. Through a temporary WLAN network, the visitors’ data, such as login, logout, duration, time, “send” and “receive”, will be sonified and as music forms a “digital stage” for the dance.

Ravenna’s sculptural instrument of audible data streams provides the dancer with a real-time autonomous co-performer. The interactive sound installation SesamSesam enables the dancer – or member of the public – to kinesthetically experience the auditory: body movements are directly correlated to the spatialisation of sounds within the sensor room.

Jutta Ravenna and Sabine Sanio

 


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