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Martin Calvino

week_1: Manifesto


I intend to approach the field of 'experimental sound composition' in relation to science and tango. These two topics are the two main avenues of creative exploration in relation to art, technology and new media.

In the area of science, my first approaches to 'experimental sound composition' had to do with 'genome sonification', that is the translation of DNA sequence contexts from plant genes to sound. This work is encompassed within a more general approach I've embarked in relation to the integration of art, technology and genome biology that I've termed ARTE GAGAISTA o GAGAISMO (from the words Geometric And Genomic AbstractionISM). In the pursuit of this new avenue for creative exploration, genome information is used as raw material for the creation of abstract art and abstract sound compositions.

Because scientists have access to genome sequence data by interacting with 'genome browsers' in order to search, retrieve, display, compare, manipulate and download DNA and protein sequence information; the browser allows for new modes of aesthetic decisions as to how display and represent the visual identity of genes and proteins. For new media artists as myself, it also allows for the inspiration and re-interpretation of data in terms of 'experimental sound compositions' that reflect in part the structure and organization of genes along the chromosomes and their evolutionary history.

My interest in 'interactive music' as class lies then in the opportunity to learn coding skills that ultimately will allow me to render sound compositions when interacting with gene and protein sequences via a browser (a new kind of 'genome browser' that integrates visual and sound aesthetics).

In this regard, the ultimate goal of ARTE GAGAISTA is to create 'total works of arts' (with Richard Wagner as inspirational source, who invented the concept of 'a total work of art) in which genome sequence information from living organisms is re-created in artistic form not only visually but also auditory.

When thinking about sound in relation to art, technology and tango, my goal as new media artist is to use recordings of tango songs as sculptural material for the creation of novel and abstract sound compositions that preserve some aspect of the original recordings. This endeavor has to do with the re-contextualization of the cultural output of my country of origin (Uruguay) and its neighbor country (Argentina) that is also the country of origin of my wife and her family. Living tango culture as an enthusiastic dancer and listener, extending it to the realm of new media art and my creative output as artist fill me with a sense of belonging despite the fact that I live in United States now. The tension of cultural tradition and technological progress in tango produces in me a tension that I want to explore. In one hand, I am a traditionalist when dancing tango and attending tango events; on the other hand I want to 'break' tango when thinking in terms of an experimental artist in order to add something new to it from my own perspective.

Previous work I've realized at the intersection of sound, technology and tango marked the departure point and signaled the general direction of my research line: that is the algorithmically produced sound compositions derived from tango recordings as raw material for sculpting new sound compositions. In this sense, by taking the class of 'interactive music' will allow me to explore compositional rules and algorithmic skills to make y objective a reality.

The subsequent level then is to bring this sound compositions back to the tango community where I belong (NYC, NJ, and Montevideo) and measure the reaction of dancers to the new aesthetics of tango. How would the resulting music would be danced? Can it be danced? Would someone wanted to dance it?

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