REFLEXION – In Sync / Out of Sync – Installation & Performance

REFLEXION – In Sync / Out of Sync – Installation & Performance for percussion, electronics and dance.

2022: Honorary Mention by the Giga-Hertz-Award at ZKM Center for Art and Media Karlsruhe (Germany), a world-renowned prize for electronic music and sound art.

REFLEXION In Sync / Out of Sync is a real-time light and sound installation consisting of electroluminescent (EL) wires and octophonic (8.2) sound. The main concept is based on research showing that our heartbeats can be synchronised by deepening the perception of others. It exists in 2 versions namely Installation and Performance.

In the installation, two visitors are invited to sit in front of each other surrounded by a light structure made of EL wires. This light structure is steered by their heartbeats measured with finger pulse sensor.

When the two participants do not share the same frequency of their heartbeats, the installation is in an Out-of Sync state and the sound becomes dissonant; when their heart frequency are synchronised, the installation reacts in an In-Sync state, with agreeable and non-dissonant sound in the octophonic soundscape.

The Performance is a composition for percussion, electronics and dancer, whose world premiere took place at St Peter on October 26th, 2019. It works with a similar conception as the installation, although the work follows a rigorous plan for all musical events via a special score, whereby all performers, including the dancer have clear indications of what to do in this ca. 31 minutes long composition. The only aspect that may change from performance to performance is the manner in which the heartbeats of both dancer and member of the public synchronise or not, which therefore affects in real-time the type of music events coming from the electronic (which nevertheless are limited to 3 main situations: synch’d, not synch or close to be synch’d.

This compostion has been made possible thanks to the support of Innogy Stiftung and ON Neue Musik Köln supported by the City of Cologne.

Related research articles:

  • Robles-Angel C., Gernemann-Paulsen A., Seifert U. (2022) Web-Mindscape and REFLEXION – In Sync/Out of Sync –: Biofeedback and Physical Computing in Inter-active New Media Art. In: Wölfel M., Bernhardt J., Thiel S. (eds) ArtsIT, Interactivity and Game Creation. ArtsIT 2021. Lecture Notes of the Institute for Computer Sciences, Social Informatics and Telecommunications Engineering, vol 422. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978- 3-030-95531-1_2

Premiere of the Performance Version
26 October 2019 Kunststation Sankt Peter Köln

REFLEXION_Performance_vimeo from Claudia Robles-Angel on Vimeo.

Highlights from the performances at:

Dialograum Kreuzung an St. Helena Bonn (01.10.2021)
Johanneskirche Stadtkirche Düsseldorf (26.01.2022)

“Klanginstallation Claudia Robles – Angel

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