Fabryka Sztuki, Łódź (PL)
2023

Mouja, or The Magnetic Ouija, is a performance focusing on odd physical and temporal causalities. At the core of the piece are Thales and Stacco, two instruments based on magnets and developed at the Intelligent Instruments Lab. Through the playfulness, unpredictability and tactility of their magnetic interactions, and with the use of neural synthesis, these two instruments are helping me exploring new sonic and gestural territories.

Mouija is a first-person investigation of the instruments' ergodynamics, of their composed nature and of the semantics that emerge out of their combination with neural synthesis.

Through a practice-based approach I tried to respond to the following questions: what artistic narratives may develop between AI and Magnetic Scores? How do the semantic potentials of both practices inform each other? What new knowledge can emerge out of this?

The process was rewarding: as I discovered by iteratively engaging with this system, the opaqueness of AI models and the elusive nature of the magnetic interactions found a suggestive parallel in the idea of the spectre, as an entity that is perceived but does not plainly reveal itself. The spectrality of magnetic interactions, along with the ghostly sonic presences created by the AI model from the origina dataset, find here a common ground in the Magnetic Ouija.

The following is a binaural version from the performance at Fabrika Sztuki, adapted from a quadraphonic setup. Headphones rercommended.

Mouja

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