Excerpt from performance at the Museum of Contemporary Art, Australia (2014). Video: Dara Gill
DUTY
Duty explores sonic possibilities and human limits, harnessing the bodily convulsions produced by electrical impulses to control seven performers in a work composed in one octave for fourteen handbells. The title of the work refers both to the movement of a bell and the enforced physical obligation of the performers, and references Pavlovian classical conditioning experiments pairing the sound of a bell with another stimulus to elicit conditioned responses in subjects. A performative realization of a system where agency is dispersed across people, objects, and the environment, the work creates a distributed system where the artist/composer executes pre-determined motor actions in the performers via electric muscle stimulation (EMS).
A composition converted to MIDI triggers two custom-built EMS devices, which deliver electrical impulses to specific points on the performers’ arms via electrodes attached to their skin, causing their muscles to contract and generating specific involuntary movements at changing velocities. Variations in voltage, frequency and pulse width dictate different muscular responses in the performers, ranging from unnatural jolts to unnervingly fast movements. Duty uses the induction of involuntary movement to explore the way physical (and psychological) constraints can determine both a musical outcome and extend sonic possibilities. Expanding the potential of the human body beyond conscious control the use of electric muscle stimulation in this context enables experimentation with rhythmic structures and fast movements that the performers would be unable to achieve of their own volition. The ensemble of performers create a unified somatic instrument; a conduit for complex rhythmic soundscapes and visually unnerving movements.
The transmogrification of the performers’ body as an input/output device provides a novel way to explore the interface between technology and live performance, and raises interesting questions regarding creative agency in the creation of music. Duty explores the liminal space between didactic execution and free interpretation inherent in all musical performance.
Performance at Sydney Contemporary, Carriage works, Sydney 2018. Photo Credit: Jacqui Manning. Image Courtesy of Performance Space
PROJECT DETAILS
DATE : 2014
MEDIUM : performance
DURATION : 16’40”
PERFORMANCES
Performance Contemporary, Sydney Contemporary, Carriage Works, Sydney Australia, 2018
Engineering the Future– V&A Digital Design Week, Victoria and Albert Museum, London, 2016
CURRENTS: The Santa Fe International New Media Festival, El Museo Culural de Santa Fe, New Mexico, 2016
Sonic Social, Museum of Contemporary Art Sydney Australia, 2014
AWARDS
PRIX ARS ELECTRONICA Honorary Mention, Digital Music and Sound Art, 2015
This project was commissioned by Performance Space for Sonic Social at Museum of Contemporary Art (Sydney)