Concept

Keywords: 

participatory, mobile, public art, satellites, artificial intelligence, phone app, distributive, sound art.

Concept

Music for Gongs & Satellites is a participatory sound artwork for gongs and satellites that was conceived to be performed by random public participants in any given public space. The work maximises on a minimal amount of resources in that it uses a rather simple algorithm or set of rules to achieve a result that is both complex and sublime.

At the core of the work is a dedicated mobile phone app that is used to coordinate the participants as a distributed mass, allowing them to “run wild within a system” and undertake performative actions that are never the less synchronic. 

As the performers make their way through the space as they perform, the sonic, visual, and kinetic elements of the work get united into a synesthetic whole, bringing a unique experience for participants and audience alike with each performance of the work.   

The goal of the work is not only to create a beautiful work of performative soundart that combines diverse genre but also to get people to come together as a group and enjoy themselves through cultural engagement, letting them forget about differences and life style stress so that they are given the chance to focus on doing something together as true individuals within a group setting.

Participation

Anyone interested in participating can participate, because there are no limits as to how can perform in terms of age and gender. As it requires no verbal communication and is quite easy to grasp how to perform the work, the work is able to cross cultural boundaries often drawn by language barriers.

To perform the work, each of the participants is given a paired set of tuned gongs, a gong mallet, and an armband phone holder; they are then asked to download a simple app “gong.pong.sat” from the net to their phones. Participants are readied for the performance in less than 5 minutes and performing is accomplished by “learning by doing” – which makes the work not only exciting to perform and beautiful to experience, but fun to participate as it unfolds in time.

As participants can play for a few minutes or a few hours, the duration of the work is variable.  As performers come and go, it can be continuous or can stop and start at random intervals over the course of the day.

The work must be performed in a large space such as a train station, a forest, a public park, a parking area, or any pedestrian area.