Swarm
2018
(Prosthetic devices, VR video game and workshops)
Swarm is a performances that consists of dance, video and live sound produced by analogous and digital ways that explore the concept of bee swarms and its complex structures of behavior. Applying the idea of ¨Drone¨ within the synthesis of contemporary audio and its implications in dance, the visualization of these makes an audiovisual assembly where the body of a performer affects in real time the modulation of the sound and the video manages to generate an unconventional narrative. This performance has a live AR experience where audiences can interact with elements within the concert space. Swarm has been artistically directed by Asher Remy-Toledo (Hyphen-Hub NYC)
Ethology (scientific study of human and animal behavior) raises inferences about human behavior from the observation of animal species, however, to some extent all behavior attributed to animals becomes a reflection of human behavior if we can not move away Of what characterizes us as a species.
In relation to insect studies, James L Gould discovered that wild bees possess sophisticated deduction powers and can come to a conclusion based on patterns built on past experiences. Such skills can hardly be explained by current definitions of consciousness and language or the interdependence of both. The isolated mental capacity of a single bee can not support such complexity either. In order to find some linguistic structure it is necessary to approach the behavior of swarms and not the study of individuals.
The total communication vocabulary of an individual can be considered as latent "bits" of a larger resident logic and these interactive patterns and similar in structure to the ability of human speech. In other words, although the sound producing a single bee is not comparable to the complex speech of a human individual, perhaps the interactive vocal pattern of the group is, and can be considered as self-referential evidence of a comparable mental structure. Isolating and studying only the individual's calls is analogous to focusing only on the separate phonemes of human language and not on their grammar.
Swarm is an audiovisual performance that refers to the complexity of the structures of communication of insect species, through the visualization of sound frequencies of individuals and groups, exploring the concept of swarm and its influences on the idea of Dron in sound and music. Electronic music is the medium for reflection because it allows us to sample, modulate and structure the sounds in a defined period of time.
The technical nature of electronic music allows to modulate, to sample and to structure the sounds of insects in a determined period of time, - to this exploration we have denominated "Biotechno" - a dialectic that connects the industrial environment in which we live and the wild spaces Inhabited by insects, translated through manipulation of field recordings supported by contemporary synthesis techniques.
Produced by: Asher Remy-Toledo, Hyphen Hub