Useless And Necessary

In collaboration with: Eva Barrenechea

Techniques: Pure Data, Raspberry Pi, Arduino, Stereophony, Composition.

„Useless and Necessary” is an installation of drawings by Eva Berrenechea, with the sound by Błażej Kotowski. It is inspired by one of the ideas that Clarice Lispector develops in her novel „The apple in the dark”. It is the idea of a new consciousness awakening that reinvents our old world. Such an endeavor generates a swing between calmness and chaos that B.K. explores through sound in complicity with the viewer. „Useless and necessary” proposes an eleven-meter long journey to explore from the inopia and through the senses.

Sound design

The methodology emerges from the appreciation of the way sound is organized in the natural world. The sonic part of the installation was thought to generate the sound following the principles of chaos. The sound is generated in real-time in collaboration with the audience walking through the eleven-meter long installation site. Each of the 8 drawings is armed in a single PIR motion sensor. All the sensors, consecutively contribute to an 8-bit integer variable, which in turn defines the initial state of a chaotic feedback system within the designated software developed for the installation purposes. The audience effectively, constitute the driving force for the sound engine generating the soundscape.

Thus, the momentary state of the audience moving in front of the drawings decides on the quality of the generated soundscape.

Useless And Necessary: Screenshot of the PD patch mapping the sensors.

Useless And Necessary: Screenshot of the PD patch generating part of the soundscape.

Useless And Necessary: Screenshot of the PD patch generating part of the soundscape.

The recording is an excerpt from the installation soundscape.