This year my work was part of the "WELL-TRODDEN CONNECTIONS", exhibition by PHOTINUS Studio in Dovzhenko Centre, made within DocuDays and Molodist Film Festival. The topics of exhibition reflected on groundbreaking inventions of ukrainian scientists of the 1960s and their legacy in the fields of cybernetics and healthcare.
Exhibition space was rethinked into an abstract, topological model of a human, every "biological" part of which was a separate installation.
My work was drawing parallels between medicine and music,
both of which created device (pacemaker/DJ midi-controller)
to maintain the ideal rhythm (heartbeat/song's beats per minute rate)
and to be able to make one's life easier.
Pacemaker starts working when the heart is totally unable to drive processes of pumping correctly through all it's segments. When things get out of control, pacemaker defibrillates heart and sets it's own rhythm for all the segments, ensuring they are working mutually and in order.
I find that process very similar to how modern DJs are able to align tempos of the upcoming audio track with track that is being played with just one button ―
"SYNC".
Like a real pacemaker, in this installation DJ controller was incorporated into our "human body" construction; the speaker and plasma TV represented electrocardiogram monitor to track changes in the system.
"Ideal rhythm" was procedurally generated and processed in TouchDesigner, referencing ideal form, amplitude and pacing of peaks on an electrocardiogram of a healthy person with a 60 beats per minute heart rate.
Each interval or complex is stretched, shifted or changes it's amplitude if the person is suffering from some cardiac disease. Repetition of that pattern makes evident changes in tempo and continuity of a heartbeat ― similar to how modern DJ software allows to monitor changes in alignment of audio tracks.
Pioneer DDJ-RB controller's knobs, faders and jog were mapped onto procedural waveform's parameters so a person could change them live, transforming audio signal and audibly perceiving how "wellness" of the abstract patient changes. One of the faders was responsible for adjusting background synth ambience, slowly rising in volume, representing changes that happen with heart over time but over which we still have control.
Visual component of the installation consisted of two parts.
First part represented changes in tempo and amplitude of the generated signal, resulting in an abstract pattern that may refer both to an ECG-monitor curve and audiowaveform.
Second part represented tension redistribution between four heart's segments during the process of "a pump", where every further deviation from the ideal rhythm drove them away from the ideal composition and changed way of their interaction.
This is a little live performance recorded during exhibition period in June of 2021.
Thank you for attention!
