Ryoji Ikeda Supercodex and Supersymmetry

Can’t believe his gig was almost two years ago. One of a scarse amount that actually do some things to you…

Soft Revolvers+Le Révélateur @Sonic Cinema/ BFI, London Mar 2015

In March 2015 British Film Institute in collaboration with Electra and Mutek presented Digital Quèbec: a couple of nights with province’s most innovative and experimental A/V creators(line-up)

I got myself in for the last performance that comprised two artists.

Myriam Bleau presented her Soft Revolvers: 4 spinning tops built with clear acrylic, each associated with an ‘instrument’ of some sorts. The tops were equipped with gyroscopes and accelerometers that communicated wirelessly with a computer where the motion data collected (speed, unsteadiness at the end of a spin, acceleration spikes in case of collisions) informed musical algorithms designed in Pure Data. LEDs placed inside the tops illuminate the body of the objects in a precise counterpoint to the music.The positioning of the lights created visually stunning halos around the tops, enhanced by POV effects (persistence of vision). A camera placed above the performance table provided video feed that was subtly manipulated and projected back on the screen behind the artist, making the projections an integral part of the performance.
myriambleu.com

Le Révélateur (visual artist Sabrina Ratté and electronic music producer Roger Tellier Craig) merged visuals together with a multitude of hybrid sonic textures , the effect being tracks that buzz and hum in glitched-out cacophony, while others incorporate warped sonic bodies through use of Analogue Solutions’ Telemark synth.
RTC:”I was completely obsessed with the development of early computer music and electronic music in the 70s and 80s and, coincidentally Sabrina was also immersed in the history of electronically generated images from that era [..] We were both very interested in the combination of electronic sound and imagery [..] I feel like we finally managed to zero in on this kind of impossible/virtual reality aesthetic we were going for over the past couple of years, and the artwork for Extreme Events,  as well as the video for Aftermath Selves  really depicts this.
SR: “We’ve been exploring different techniques as well, and one of them was to connect both our modulars together in order to achieve sirect synchronisation between the music and the image. But this is only one aspect of the performance, and it gets mixed with many other images that are not sync by wires or anything. It;s important for me to keep a certain amount of spontaneity in a persotmance, because that’s when interesting accidents have a change to happen”

thecreatorsproject.vice.com