Author: Miguel

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Choice Simplification Device (CSD)

 

Choose.

You are free.

You are free to choose.

There’s a world of choice drawn just for you…

Choose.

Choose:

Choose!

How are the ethico-political dimensions of choice being captured by current models of consumption? Facing the neoliberal machinery, techno-capitalism organises itself around the intangible, creating services that act as intermediaries. Within this logic, choice is equated to freedom. More choice = More freedom. CSD is a service which aims to exacerbate the act of choosing to its ad absurdum limits.

CSD is a mobile game that presents the user with a service to aid with  multiple choices to satisfy three vital issues:

I am hungry

I am thirsty

I have an existential vacuum

For each issue, the system provides a curated set of options that seem to simplify the act of choosing. However, as the decision begins to narrow, more and more options appear: more choice, more freedom. As the time ends, the user is asked to confirm their current choice. This gives two distinct results:

Game over: “What do you really need?”;

Well done: “You have made a free choice” (Even if the last choice is far away from what they really wanted).

Leveraging the tensions between need/desire/choice, CSD utilises a ‘quizz’ aesthetic to break down the absurdities of techno-capitalist consumption practices tied to the multiplicity of choice. If advertisement claims that we are free because we can choose, and we choose because we consume: where does the choice to not consume fall within this logic?

How important choosing is?

Which choices are really important?

 

Choice Simplification Device is an ongoing collaboration between performance artist Camila Mozzini and Miguel Ortiz.

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S&V

S&V is a work in two movements for amplified saxophone, violin and ECG signals. It was commissioned by saxophonist Franziska Schroeder and violinist Gascia Ouzounian. This piece develops explores non-real time usage of biosignals to generate musical materials as well as live interaction. In S&V, ECG signals are not only employed as an instrument to directly produce or manipulate sounds, but pre-recorded data sets of ECG signals are used to generate musical materials such as melodic and rhythmic patterns. This was to explore these signals in a more structured way, whilst still using the heart as an instrument in real time.

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Emotion in Motion

The MuSE team have been closely involved with the current exhibition in the Science Gallery, Dublin, the theme of which is ‘Music & The Body’.

You are invited to measure your emotions as a part of an on-going experiment with music, emotion and physiology. Does your body like music you thought you hated?

Using heart-rate monitors and skin conductance, the experiment reads your physical response to a selection of music samples.

Continue reading Emotion in Motion

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Soundscape Park

soundscapepark

 

The Soundscape Park project is a new exciting and unique installation in the newly built Bridge Community Garden on the Albertbridge Road, Belfast.

Permanent loudspeakers are hidden among the plants and at height.  Sensors are also installed to detect movement and allow visitor interaction.  Ambientsoundscapes will be playing all around the garden, continually changing throughout the day.  Each visit will be different.

I designed and implemented the software that runs the Soundscape Park system.

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Dentro

Miguel Ortiz from Casa Sociacusia on Vimeo.

Dentro is a work composed for Brainwaves and Heartbeats. It is an homage to Alvin Lucier’s Music for Solo Performer. Throughout the piece, the performer goes through several emotional and cognitive states in order to perform the piece. It starts from a natural stressed state brought in by the context of performing in front of an audience without any means for direct control apart from the direct sonification of the performer’s physiological signals. As the piece progresses, the performer must travel through a series of emotional memories before achieving a relaxed state that ends the piece.

This work was possible thanks to the support of the Fondo Nacional Para la Cultura y las Artes, Programa Jovenes Creadores 2009-2010.

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I’ll Be On The Water

I’ll Be On The Water is an exercise in navigating the time and space of something passed. It attempts to present a physical, tangible method of exposing (or burying) a memory; and allows the performer to immerse him/herself in the moments which manifest them visually and aurally. The piece reflects the fragmented and sometimes invasive nature of an experience that can not be either recalled quite clearly enough, nor entirely forgotten.

“Everything I’ve ever let go of has claw marks on it.”  – David Foster Wallace

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Carne

 

Carne is written for amplified (or electric) violoncello and EMG sensors. The piece is loosely inspired by Terry Bison’s 1991 short story They’re made out of meat. In Bison’s story, two apparently alien beings meet to discuss a shocking discovery about the beings on planet earth, the fact that they are made out of meat. The idea of sentient, thinking and singing meat seams both unthinkable and unbearable for these characters. I took this idea of looking at the human body simply as ‘meat’ and imagining all hand and finger movements as the simple grinding and sliding of meat pieces.