Computer Music

The 21st century creation process reeks of perfection. It is becoming seamless. This flawless façade is maintained by the evolution of technology. An image is projected onto a screen by a small plastic box as if by magic, sounds can be created on a computer by the click of a button, we take a photo and the picture is there instantaneously. We have stopped wondering how these things transform, stopped marveling at the procedure involved. We accept them in our digital reality, but what does digital even mean? How many people could explain its use of “discontinuous values for the representation of information”? Yet we use it and rely on it every single day of our lives. Computer Music establishes itself on the brink of those two worlds. It explores and celebrates both and asks similar questions. We have forgotten the experience and understanding of changing formats.

There is an overall strong nostalgic vibe as we feel the concert unfold; the dress, the sunglasses, the equipment and the Atari-like sound-scape. The first scene has the performers gather and take a Polaroid photograph, but they do not wait to see the results. The dancer puts herself between the projected image and the backdrop, breaking any form of artistic illusion and destroying the perfection of the image transfer process. The sounds that are created during this ‘8 bit Gig´ are a combination of manually generated sounds and computer-generated composition. Handa Gote dissolve the veneer of the pristine technological creation, the space is cluttered with noise making paraphernalia and the cables that power them. This piece reminds us that even in the digital era, although often forgotten by its immediacy and its proficiency, it does in fact have a process of conception that we should acknowledge and fully appreciate.