Tate Late: 29th November 2019

Hackoustic at the Tate Modern

We're very excited to have been asked back to curate another Hackoustic area for this month's Tate Lates. We're bringing a fantastic array interactive installations, sonic experiments and performances inspired by the work of Nam Jun Paik.

We were last at the Tate Modern three years ago appearing at the very first Tate Late event and it's a real treat to be asked back.

This time we're bringing a menagrie of different projects - all of them interactive explorations of sound and instruments. Check them out!

VideoDropVideo: Tim Yates and Gawain Hewitt

Inspired by the work of Nam Jun Paik, VideoDropVideo is an interactive installation that plays with randomness, video, sound and meaning. How can we piece together the things that matter from the surrounding chaos.

Vulpestruments: Tom Fox

Faradays Triptych is a three part work inducing signals from one medium to another:

Om Unit’s Mahakala - Remix The Exodus by Om Unit into your own personalised experience.
A Day in the life of Beechwood Park - Explore the sonic tapestry of everyday activities at Beechwood Park School.
Conversations - 3D printed heads contain stories and anecdotes on an ever repeating, randomised basis. Eavesdrop on the stories or make up new ones.

HopeVsFear

A sonified live-stream of Twitter mentions of Hope or Fear - we interpret the mood of the twittersphere using Tibetan singing bowls and visuals by Jake Dubber.

Curio: Tim Yates

The Doppler Machine: Jen Haugan

The Doppler machine is an interactive sonic sculpture and performance piece that combines the Doppler effect with feedback. The piece consists of a rotating disc with speakers mounted on the front of it, creating feedback patterns when a microphone is held in close proximity to the speakers.

Positioned at the boundary between sound and music, with sounds that have been described as “otherworldly”, the Doppler machine aims to challenge what we consider music, and what we may perceive as noise, while also demonstrating common audio principles to the public in a playful way.

Water Bowls: Andrew Hockey

Aesthetically and sonically based on meditative singing bowls, this instrument responds to proximity and capacitive touch data to create sonorous resonating tones when played. The tonal characteristics of each bowl morph the longer they’re sustained for in order to mimic the physical attributes of a resonating singing bowl. Diffused LEDs light up underneath each bowl to create an all round engrossing experience for the player.

Dawn Chorus: Gawain Hewitt

Code and electronics: Tim Yates
Wood turning: Jonti Bottomley

As part of their residency at Bethlem and Maudsley Hospital School, City of London Sinfonia asked Gawain Hewitt to a new sound installation encompassing some of the new music created by the Hospital School’s young people, based on the orchestra’s ‘Absolute Bird’ repertoire and the theme of nature.

‘Dawn Chorus’ features recordings of their music contained within 3 wooden bird sculptures, which when placed on the branches in different orders can create up to 33 variations of dawn choruses.

Interactive Autonomous Instrument: MyPandaShallFly

Suren Seneviratne, aka MyPandaShallFly will be showing an array of lo-fi home made electronics and circuit-bent gadgets, gathered into an interactive self-playing display arranged within a type of feedback loop.

Bamboo Mustard and Genius Loci

After thousands of years of submersion the Genius Loci has formed from the mud and debris of the river Thames, archiving the material history of London in his body. He will be exploring that history with the help of Bamboo Mustard.

Performed by Ashleigh Fisk and Adam Paroussos

Sound Stitcher: Brendan O’Connor

Sound Stitcher is a 100-year-old sewing machine that no longer functions in the manner it was designed for, but participants can still interact with its controls to design sound instead of cloth. With each interaction, the acoustic properties of sounds generated by the piece become mangled and distorted beyond recognition, paying homage to the battery and abandonment these discarded pieces of machinery have endured over the years.

Shhare: Richard Grant

Shhare is an analogue demonstration of encryption enabling deceit that lends to intimacy via 256 possible connecting options. Even at test of concept stage it is hugely popular in encouraging engagement, play and learning.

Participants collaborate to find their own unique conduit of communication, whilst others seek theirs. No one can be sure of who is sharing what with whom. What might they be whispering directly into each others ears – who else might be listening?

Hacked Turtables: Adrian Holder

Precis (Adrian Holder), is a sound and visual artist who processes real world sounds using anything from a hacked radio through to software such as MAX for Live. Spanning an array of genres he aims to convey the intricate balance between audio and visual perception. He will be presenting his sound and object reactive turntable and will also be doing a collaborative effort with Richard Grant using his awesome Quotem light sculpture with a light translation device.

Quotem: Richard Grant

Collaboratively produced with an extensive and brilliant network of talented coders and technicians. Utilising addressable LED technology, extensive 3Dprinting, traditional fabrication and Bluetooth update control via Android phone resulting in lit communicative sculptural elements (5v USB battery powered).

Quotem communicates with the viewer by revealing itself in multiple ways. The engaged participant must decipher messages, to learn, experience and share.