nxWMail

An audiovisual installation.
Miquel Parera

Project page: www.musicnumbers.es/miquel-parera/works/nxw/
www.musicnumbers.es/miquel-parera/works/nxwmail/

for Recorreguts Sonors (Convent de Sant Agustí)

General description:

nxWMail is an audiovisual installation. A computer waits for someone to insert their mail and, once done, takes it as a title and plays a random duo of animation and sound generated algorithmically. Once completed, send to the provided email:

– An audio file generated.
– A video file generated.
– Files of the generated images.
– A cover with the title.
– A text file with information.
– All the code needed to play the project on another computer.


Aesthetic justification:

As an author, the idea of ​​technological sovereignty is present in my work in two ways:

On the one hand, the aesthetic trend that goes from poststructuralism to Bey’s immediatism: It tries to corner the middlemen who, for a long time, have had economic, non-artistic motivations in favor of the interpretation of the receiver of the work. I leave spaces without explanation, unsatisfied expectations, moments of silence and blank screen … understanding these as opportunities to complete the work with the contribution of the viewer. You do not have to tell him what to feel, he is free to feel and think.

For example, in the use of repetition and drone boredom often appears, a drift of attention that leads the listener to think about whether he lacks soap to buy or has to send a message to his brother. We could become self-centered and manipulative and say, “It can not be, they do not listen to me, I need to make more noise to focus on me”, but I prefer to go unnoticed like the waves of the sea, which rock the thoughts but do not control them .

On the other hand, participating in the movements of Creative Commons and Open Source, which coincide in the idea of ​​trying to transmit the culture is circular, treating the receiver as creator, providing the tools to create (in this case the code) and releasing the work itself so that it can be part of another or that, simply, if it has any restriction on dissemination, it is not merely economic. I think that at present the transmission of culture (understood artistically and technologically) is linear, since it is transmitted by an expert or an artist with a special gift to a passive receiver, who is presumed unfit to become, himself , in creator.

So what does nxWMail do? Then take a step further in the open transmission of culture, sending directly to the listener’s mail completed work and tools to become one himself. In this way it is not necessary for the listener to know the world of Creative Commons and Open Source, surf the web and find things, but it reaches directly to your mailbox.

nxW

Description:

nxW is an autonomous, algorithmic and random audiovisual system that, at the same time, can be controlled in real time by modifying its programming code.

General Operation:

There is a repository of random audio generators that are called, in pairs, during the time that nxW is running.

These generators, besides audio and video, create a code so that they can be modified at any time of the interpretation.

Esthetic:

nxW has, as its main philosophical objective, to widen the space of perceptual and ideological freedom of the spectator. Therefore, it uses a minimalist and abstract approach in the audio and generated images:

It leaves perceptual space (thanks to the minimalism) to the public so that it can incorporate its own situation (sounds and images that happen while the work is developed).

It leaves intellectual space to the recipient (thanks to abstraction), since it does not force interpretation nor tries to communicate ideas.



Links:

Recorreguts Sonors: conventagusti.com/blog/category/recorreguts

Convent de San Agustí: conventagusti.com

Postestructuralism: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Post-structuralism

Immediatism: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peter_Lamborn_Wilson

Repetitive Music: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Repetitive_music

Drone Music: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Drone_music

Creative Commons: creativecommons.org

Open Source: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Open-source_model

Software used:

SuperCollider: supercollider.github.io

PureData: puredata.info

Sox: sox.sourceforge.net

Imagemagick: www.imagemagick.org/script/index.php

Linux Mint: linuxmint.com