Negentropy Nexus Online Residence

This audio work is based on the context of life and its connection with negentropy. Life forms, from

the simplest single-celled organisms to complex ecosystems, appear to defy the tendency by

maintaining and increasing order within themselves organizing, structuring and maintaining

system’s processes in a state of low disorder-entropy. Theta grows as a sound that takes care of

itself, takes energy and transform it, changes shape, moves towards entropy but returns on its

centrality as a founding element of its acoustic life. The path that it takes could be direct or indirect

but the thing that characterizes it is the return to life.

Composer: Daria Baiocchi
Year: 2024
Timing: 7’14’’
Commission: ArtsonusLab - Negentropy Nexus Online Residence
Visual Art: Allan Boccatonda, Untitled, oil on paper, 44x62cm, 2021 

For the residency Dan Antoniu will create a telematic performance event called Intertwining Infinities of Humans, Earth, and Sky on December 11th at 8:00 pm Eastern Standard time in YouTube. 

This piece revolves around the hypnotic rhythms of animals, humans, & brains which are brought together and abstracted with technology creating new perceptual environments. To create this piece, field recording, performers, and experimental conducting techniques are used. The field recordings were taken from insects and birds in Uzbekistan. There are also recordings of a Semantron Orthodox ritual and real time sound from an EEG brainwave monitor made by Edward Cunneen. 

These recordings are augmented with granular synthesis and time stretching to distort the material.

Aside from the electronic components there will also be a pianist, Jixue Yang, and percussionist Edward Cunneen performing. Since the Absonus Labs residency is digital Dan wanted to develop a piece that can be performed virtually. To do this he created a score where the performers move through different text boxes of material. However, Dan will be conducting and help shape the sound. Dan will give visual commands that tell the performers when to switch boxes as well as control volume, pitch, and density. These ideas were influenced or taken from Walter Thompson’s book SOUNDPAINTING. The conductor will also use a style of conducting pioneered by Iancu Dumitrescu & Ana Maria Avram to shape the energy within each gesture. By implementing these techniques, the conductor and performers can interact with each other and the electronics despite being in three different states.

Through this telematic event Dan hopes to connect the players and audience to nature and each other by using technology in a meaningful way. The different rhythms and periodicity of insects, birds, people, and the brain will coalesce into a hypnotic sea interrupted by ripples and explosions.

Event Title: Intertwining Infinities of Humans, Earth, and Sky
Date and Time: December 11th at 8:00 PM Eastern Standard Time
Platform: YouTube
Artist: Dan Antoniu 

Performers:
The performance features:

Pianist: Jixue Yang

Percussionist: Edward Cunneen

Year: 2024

Other artists: 

Edward Cunneen is a Sound Artist and Engineer living and working in Phoenix, Arizona. His work focuses on the creative and therapeutic applications of biosensing technologies. He has worked extensively with electroencephalogram technologies, and has given workshops on EEG interfaces and digital signal processing globally. Conceptually his work focuses on the dissonance and transfer between external and internal anthropocentric spaces, as well as speculative futures of posthuman technologies. He is interested in what our species can, and should, become in relation to our ever accelerating digital world, as well as the disruption of anthropocentrism. He recently received a grant from Taiwan's Nation Textile and Craft Research Institute to develop spectral analysis tools to better understand non-human intelligence in kombucha cultures, as well as presented work on EEG data interpreted via traditional crafts in an attempt to connect cutting edge data acquisition tools with the natural world. 

Edward Cunneen

https://www.edcunneen.com/

Jixue Yang is a contemporary classical pianist based in New York City, known for her diverse repertoire that blends Eastern and Western influences. She has performed in various cities, including Boston, New York, and several locations in China. As the first Chinese citizen in the Manhattan School of Music’s Contemporary Performance Program, she has introduced experimental contemporary music to Chinese audiences.

Born in 1993 in China, Jixue received extensive classical training, attending the Middle School attached to Beijing’s Central Conservatory of Music, where she earned top scholarships. She later studied at Walnut Hill School for the Arts, where she was inducted into the Bigelow Society and performed at the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston.

An active chamber musician, Jixue is currently the pianist/keyboardist for NYC’s InfraSound and the electroacoustic trio Apply Triangle, as well as Ensemble Blackbox. She has performed at various festivals and venues, including the Nief-Norf Summer Music Festival and the SinusTon Electronic Music Festival in Germany.

Jixue holds both a Bachelor and Master of Music degree from Manhattan School of Music, where she is now pursuing a Doctor of Musical Arts in Piano Performance. She has studied under notable teachers and serves as a teaching assistant in the Keyboard Skills Department at MSM.

Jixue Yang

https://www.youtube.com/@jixueyang4764/featured

Metro-Cosmology is an intermedia art project exploring the cultural and spiritual complexity of Paris, developed by the visual artist R.Gritto. From 2014 to 2019, Gritto lived in Southeast Asia, immersing himself in the diversety of local cultures. In 2019, he moved to Paris and began researching opera’s history and its evolution as an art form deeply rooted in the European context. Inspired by opera as a total art form and without a fixed studio, RGritto transformed the Paris transport system into a mobile studio. Using metro cars and stations as creative hubs, he captured sounds, images, and notes, leading to a work intended for the Paris Opera House.

This project — Metro-Cosmology — weaves a multicultural and cosmopolitan narrative, reflecting the religious and ethnic diversity found in the city. The composition combines orchestral and electronic instruments, creating a sonic experience that crosses boundaries and evokes varied cultural landscapes. Among its 23 “genetic sounds” captured from the metro environment is Gare de Lyon, which, along with others, contributes to a sonic landscape evoking the unity in diversity and the universality of human experience.

Metro-Cosmology invites the viewer to dive into a universe where mythologies and beliefs interlace, celebrating inclusivity in one of Paris’s most dynamic spaces: the metro. (Gritto, 2024)

Metro-Cosmology, a collaborative project by R. Gritto, Hugo Paquete, and the Absonus Lab Creative Team, redefines the intersections between sound, performance, and AI technological mediation,  shattering artistic boundaries. Gritto’s project stablish connections with Paquete’s theoretical framework, where sound functions as a meta-political force for cultural critique and disruption, supported by Paquete’s ideas of “micro sound” and “maximum sound” (Paquete, 2022), as well as his concept of “performative listening” (ibid). By embedding sound in urban spaces, Metro-Cosmology positions sound not merely as an aesthetic component but as an agent capable of transforming perceptions of public space and challenging entrenched cultural narratives.

In Metro-Cosmology, Henri Lefebvre’s theory of the "production of space"—which holds that space both shapes and is shaped by social interactions—is extended to encompass the auditory domain (Lefebvre, 1991). This project treats urban soundscapes as more than atmospheric phenomena, transforming them into territories imbued with power dynamics and mechanisms of social control. David Labelle’s Acoustic Territories further informs this perspective by exploring how urban sound structures express authority and uphold social boundaries (Labelle, 2010). Through this framework, Metro-Cosmology constructs sound as a social phenomenon within urban environments, integrating Lefebvre’s spatial theories with the sociopolitical power of urban acoustics. Here, sound serves as both a tool of control and resistance, a mutable force capable of reflecting and challenging ideological tensions. Paquete’s approach thus allows the project to frame urban soundscapes as dynamic, ideologically charged territories, underscoring his view that sound’s materiality transcends the physical to stimulate social critique and heighten political consciousness.

Paquete’s notion of “performative listening” enhances Metro-Cosmology, introducing a nuanced form of audience interaction that goes beyond passive reception to encompass the full spectrum of meanings contained within each sonic event. He defines performative listening as an active process that “considers all levels of meaning implicit in the event, including technical and conceptual production considerations” (Paquete, 2022). This framework contrasts with passive listening by cultivating a deeper awareness of a production’s complex implications, merging auditory experience with historical and aesthetic contexts to foster a more intuitive understanding of the work’s innovation. In Metro-Cosmology, performative listening is central, as it transforms the act of listening into an immersive engagement with both the soundscape and its embedded cultural narratives. This approach resonates with Sterne’s (2012) observation that digital technologies reshape listening modes, embedding each experience with layers of sociopolitical and aesthetic significance. By inviting audiences to navigate these auditory interplays, Metro-Cosmology cultivates a critically engaged listening mode that encompasses both the audible and the conceptual aspects of sound.

In Metro-Cosmology, artificial intelligence serves as a collaborator, not merely a tool, reflecting Paquete’s emphasis on AI-driven “maximum sound,” where sound adapts responsively to complex social and environmental dynamics (Paquete, 2022). In this work, AI operates as an interlocutor, interpreting and responding to speculative designs and human interactions. Shanken (2006) discusses how roles like these redefine machine agency in art, expanding the potential for technology to shape creative processes and actively engage audiences. The AI systems in Metro-Cosmology create a responsive, site-specific visual and sonic landscape that adapts in real time, revealing and reshaping the sociocultural fabric of metropolitan spaces as speculative output for stage designs. This dialogic interaction between human intent, technological processes, and the acoustic environment challenges traditional boundaries, introducing a participatory model in which AI-driven art reveals the social dynamics and political tensions embedded in contemporary software and hardware systems.

Metro-Cosmology positions the audience as active participants, inviting them to re-evaluate their relationship with sound and space within digitally mediated environments. By transforming both gallery spaces and urban sites into immersive speculative visual and sonic environments, the project disrupts familiar sensory experiences, prompting a reimagining of space through AI and sound. Paquete further develops this idea by introducing a cognitive dimension within Metro-Cosmology, where sound and space form a “meta-world” in human cognition. He explains, “all the things that exist and don’t exist coexist, such as desires, pulses of imagination, creativity, and a world on multiple scales represented on a sound and visual screen” (Paquete, 2022). This concept of a meta-world suggests that Metro-Cosmology immerses audiences in a multi-sensory landscape, where sounds and images merge with memory, imagination, and perception. Each sound fades “like a present state that fades away every millisecond in our memory,” creating an absence where knowledge and meaning emerge. Paradoxically, this space of absence is filled with memories and impressions, creating a layered awareness where “what is not seen but exists” influences the audience’s experience profoundly. Paquete’s exploration of disorientation as a performative model, presented in Imanências Espectrais: Reflexão sobre o Pós-Digital nas Artes Sonoras, frames this simulation of sound and memory as a tool for reconfiguring sensory perception (Paquete, 2022). By engaging sound as an active, sometimes disruptive element, Metro-Cosmology invites audiences to recalibrate their sensory relationship with urban spaces. This speculative design aligns with Sterne’s (2012) assertion that sound, as a continuously evolving medium reshaped by technology, invites critical reflection on how technology influences spatial perception and the sociopolitical dynamics of urban soundscapes. Ultimately, Metro-Cosmology deploys sound and AI as a simulacrum that projects ideas, histories, and imaginaries onto a shared auditory experience. This meta-world of layered meanings and memories creates an immersive environment where perception intersects with sociopolitical critique, technological mediation, and the subconscious echoes of urban life.

At its core, Metro-Cosmology positions sound as a force of cultural resistance, reflecting Steve Goodman’s theory of "sonic warfare," which posits that sound serves both as a mechanism of control and a form of resistance within public spaces (Goodman, 2010). In Metro-Cosmology, sound and AI art coalesce to create a participatory sonic space where public environments become platforms for social dialogue and technological critique. Paquete’s notion of “sonic diaspora” and “techno-ethnography” further envisions sound as a cross-cultural, mobile force that challenges conventional understandings of space, technology, and identity. This speculative approach aligns with Paquete’s broader aim of investigating sound as a form of governance. By framing sound as a political agent, Metro-Cosmology explores AI-driven art as a tool for sociopolitical critique and audience engagement, prompting viewers to experience sound as an active, agentive element within urban environments that transcends cultural and physical boundaries. Through this model of sonic governance, Metro-Cosmology presents sound as a transformative force, encouraging critical engagement with urban ecologies and reframing public space in the digital age.

Metro-Cosmology by R. Gritto and Hugo Paquete exemplifies a exploration of sound and AI art as both aesthetic and sociopolitical forces within urban spaces, redefining AI’s role as an active agent in creative production. Drawing on Lefebvre’s spatial theory and Labelle’s acoustic territories, the project positions urban soundscapes as ideologically charged constructs open to social critique. Paquete’s concept of performative listening turns listening into an immersive engagement with layered sonic meanings, inviting deeper reflection on the cultural, social, and political dimensions within public spaces. Ultimately, Metro-Cosmology disrupts auditory experiences, positioning sound and AI as a transformative medium capable of reshaping urban ecologies and cultural landscapes. Paquete’s work thus contributes to a critical framework that interrogates the sociopolitical implications of sound in digital media art, advancing sound’s role as a medium for cultural resistance and participatory engagement in the digital age.

- Goodman, Steve. Sonic Warfare: Sound, Affect, and the Ecology of Fear. Cambridge: MIT Press, 2010.

- Labelle, David. Acoustic Territories: Sound Culture and Everyday Life. New York: Continuum, 2010.

- Lefebvre, Henri. The Production of Space. Oxford: Blackwell, 1991.

- Paquete, Hugo. "Imanências Espectrais: Reflexão sobre o Pós-Digital nas Artes Sonoras." PhD diss., Universidade Aberta, 2022.

- Shanken, Edward A. Art and Electronic Media. London: Phaidon, 2006.

- Sterne, Jonathan. The Audible Past: Cultural Origins of Sound Reproduction. Durham: Duke University Press, 2012.

Paquete, Hugo. "Critical Analysis of Metro-Cosmology: Sound, Space, and Technological Mediation in Post-Digital Art." CPDSMC - Center for Post-Digital Studies in Music and Culture at Absonus Lab, 2024. 

 “Work I’m developing is about the human condition in the flux of new media, social networks, artificial intelligence, abundance of images and information. Trying to maintain the integrity of the body contrary the holes that open up, through which flows streams that are no longer comprehensible and controllable. External and internal chaos, the subject, the changing world, the new human communication. Distancing oneself, not taking part, separation, loneliness, alienation, cruelty and fragmentation. Trying to feel again, through a passage, through pain, through blood.” (Vaida, 2024) 

The work Body Passages by Vaida Tamoševičiūtė presents a profound engagement with the human condition, set against the backdrop of an ever-evolving landscape shaped by new media, social networks, and the pervasive influence of artificial intelligence (AI). This artistic endeavor grapples with the complexities of maintaining bodily integrity in an age marked by an overwhelming influx of images and information. The artist confronts the myriad holes that open in our consciousness, which serve as conduits for streams of data and emotion that are increasingly incomprehensible and uncontrollable. 

This exploration raises critical questions about the nature of subjectivity in a world where the boundaries between the self and the digital are increasingly blurred. As we navigate this chaotic terrain, the work reveals a subjectivity in constant flux, shaped by the rapid changes in our environment and communication practices. The artist adeptly highlights the paradox of modern connectivity: while technology offers the promise of enhanced interaction, it simultaneously fosters distancing and a profound sense of loneliness. The rise of AI, with its capacity to simulate human interaction, complicates our relationships further, creating an illusion of connection that often deepens feelings of alienation and fragmentation. This duality is central to the critical analysis of the work, as it invites viewers to reflect on their own experiences within this technological milieu. 

The performance-video aspect of the work serves as a visceral medium through which the artist explores these themes. By evoking the rawness of human experience, the performance becomes a site of resistance—a space where the artist confronts the pain and blood that accompany the struggle to feel in an increasingly numbing world. This act of performance is not merely an aesthetic choice; it is a deliberate strategy to reclaim agency in the face of technological encroachment. The artist navigates the chaotic interplay of technology and emotion, challenging viewers to engage with the complexities of their own existence. In this context, the work emerges as both a reflection and a challenge. It illuminates the path toward reconnection—not only with oneself but also with others—despite the cruelty and disconnection that modern life often imposes. 

The artist’s exploration of these themes invites viewers to confront their own vulnerabilities and the impact of technology on their emotional landscapes. By doing so, the work becomes a critical commentary on the human condition in an age defined by artificiality and abundance, urging us to resist the passive consumption of information and instead engage actively with the emotional and existential dilemmas that arise in our increasingly mediated lives.

Ultimately, this artistic endeavor serves as a call to action: to reclaim our bodies, our emotions, and our connections in a world that often seeks to fragment and alienate us. Through this resistance process, the work not only critiques the current state of human experience in the digital age but also offers a hopeful vision for reconnection and understanding in an era fraught with complexity.