πTon, vocal rituals for rubber creatures

ton-vocal-rituals-for-rubber-creatures

Installations in the form of musical autonomous machines have the same hidden power to attract as autonomous creatures, as we attribute music and even more singing as an exclusive ability of sentient beings. The sounds associated with the movement reinforce this feeling as any kinetic toy can prove to a young human being, and when the combination has some clear interaction, our mind is prone to consider the mechanism ‘alive’. The Swiss duo Cod.Act (André and Michel Décosterd) has already mastered the creation of kinetic sound-oriented systems with the hybrid form of a natural appearance and a synthetic spirit, as with the celebrated Ex Pharao, and especially Cycloïd-E, Pendulum Choir and Nyloïd. All these works include machines with a certain fluidity and sounds that are a perfectly integrated part of the system. πTon is namely a sound installation, but it’s structured more as a performative act. It’s composed by a black looped elastic structure made out of rubber and four performers emitting voice synthetic transformations. The structure contorts and undulates because of the emissions coming from the performers’ vocal prostheses. Actually, playing with the form of VR headset, the usual cyborg-looking humans sometimes involved in Cod.Act performances, are here just human speakers, moving emitters of the synthesised vocal distortions. The whole brutal dialogue becomes a ritual, where the voice is transformed into an artificial spell, and the unreal creature into a living symbol of our fears.

 

Cod.Act – πTon