Detuned Piano
Intro
“Detuned Piano” is an audiovisual interactive installation consisting of a light strip installation and a controller that manipulates the sound of the installation. It was initially produced as an exercise in machine learning sensor input training.
It has been presented as a remote audiovisual performance in Affect & Social Media#4.5 2020.
​
Concept
​
The purpose of this work is to reflect on the impact of misleading information on the Internet about the current crisis of COVID-19 on people’s mental health. A big majority of people are getting stressed by reading articles that do not reflect on reality or they present a melodramatic reality. In fact, media are playing the Chinese whispers game (telephone) as the information changes a little from one source to the other, ending up with the reader, who many times is not able to recognize how much of the original information is there in the current article he is reading. Experiencing this interactive installation, people will feel how this altering of the original information can eventually make the reality look so different and cause stress.
Technical
​
The installation starts from the set up where an original monophonic composition has been fed into a Markov chain model that produces an endless new melody with characteristics of the original. This part of the piece reflects on the original story given to the media.
Participants will be able to use an originally designed controller consisting of capacity sensors and proximity sensors to alter the sound of a piano playing the aforementioned algorithmic composition, experiencing that way the second layer of manipulation of the original story, creating misleading information but also the feeling of being influenced by that.
​
​