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Marcello Mercado
Bestiary for the Minds of the 21st Century: Genomic Opera | 2016
The aim of the art project is to create 3D-printed objects based on various mixed genomes, as well as to explore the possibilities of 3D-printing errors (glitches). Fragments of the genetic information of different types (mammals, insects, fungi, bacteria, etc.) are randomly mixed, and by means of algorithms transformed into audio files which then are converted into 3D-printed objects. These environment-friendly 3D-printing filaments, combined with glitches and incomplete 3D-printed remains, make up the core of the musical notations.
I researched the available genome databases like Ensambl, Genome, Wormbase, Flybase, etc. to mix and cut eukaryotic and prokaryotic genomes in random combinations. The nitrogenous bases (as the letters A, T, G, C) are read by a software that transforms text into audio files. These are transformed into 3D objects, which are again printed in plastic with a 3D printer and pasted onto paper as music notations. The generation of AUDIO and VIDEO through TACTILE actions involves audience participation: The audience interacts by rubbing the 3D-printed objects with a piezoelectric microphone connected to a transductor to visualize new sounds. In parallel, each page of the opera is photographed and scanned with sonogram software in order to be converted into sound archives.
Thus, the final performance of the opera is a combination of:- 3D-plastic-printed genome-data-mining-instruments, performed live by a musician rubbing the 3D printed objects with piezoelectric microphones,
- Recorded mixed genome fragments,
- Sonogram audio files, and
- The score that instructs the performers during the entire duration of the piece throughout the four acts.
(Text: Marcello Mercado)
Commissioned by DIGITAL SYNESTHESIA
Primary cross-sensory modalities: TOUCH, VISION, AUDIO, KINESTHETICS
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Marcello Mercado
SUMMA — Notations | 2012
SUMMA — Notations explores the possibility to build a “musical-compost” with some classic music compositions “debris” in form of inventing new kinds of notes and value systems.
The artist has designed 210 notations or graphemes (symbols that can mean anything and can be combined) that are visually generated by typing on a laptop keyboard with its regular typography. Each notation/grapheme is related to a one-second- sound which again is the result of the condensed/shrinked time of the total running time of one classical composition like e.g.:
Notation A = 1 second <= shrink <= of the Mass in B minor by Johann S. Bach (original duration 135 minutes)
Notation B = 1 second <= shrink <= of Don Giovanni by Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart (original duration 175 minutes)
Notation C = 1 second <= shrink <= of Tristan und Isolde by Richard Wagner (original duration 226 minutes)Primary sensory cross-modalities: VISION, AUDIO, KINESTHETICS
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Marcello Mercado
Variations Van Gogh | 2014
The Variations Van Gogh are related to different strategies to archive and preserve Van Gogh’s seven sunflower paintings with a variety of artistic technologies like data gathering with drones, topological-mappings and ortho-photography, DNA extraction, DNA performances, a Google Earth interface-performance, Code language, 3D-Sound, 3D printing and music notations written by robots on pentagram paper.
Its synesthetic parameter derives from the transformation of artistic and media material into other mediatized materialities with different sensory modalities.
Primary sensory cross-modalities: VISION, AUDIO, PROPRIOCEPTION, KINESTHETICS