Chorusing Symbiont

The project titled Chorusing Symbionts seeks the possibility of making interspecies music, in a world where humans, robots and animals all have their place.

The project is inspired by current research in the machine learning field applied to animal communication. The end goal is to create artificial creatures that are bred to evolve organically in a symbiotic relationship with their naturally evolved counterparts. These artificial creatures will be solar-powered to allow them to live in their outdoor environment for months at a time. This will make them almost independent of human intervention outside planned repairs.
Additionally, this will allow them to fully tune in to the animals around them, noticing changes in their environments and reacting in real time to communicate with each other through sound and light. Their programming will lead them to avoid competing with wild animals in the acoustic spectrum.
The chorus of artificial animals will result in a spatial, generative electronic music composition that fosters an understanding of intelligence beyond human-centric perspectives. This would be a proposal to shift away from media saturation and the dominance of the loudest signal, towards a poetics of quietness and sensitivity.

For this project, Matteo Marangoni is collaborating with three universities, Leiden University, TU Eindhoven and TU Delft, to bring together the disciplines of machine learning, genetic algorithms and solar panel technology. His residency at Crossing Parallels will focus on the development of a thin solar photovoltaic film that's also usable as sculptural material. The designs are developed from concept to finished product with the help of the TU Delft Science Centre.

Resident

Matteo Marangoni

Matteo Holyoke Marangoni was born in Florence in 1982 in a mixed Italian and American family of artists. He studied music performance, sound engineering and cultural management, before receiving a masters diploma from the ArtScience Interfaculty in The Hague in 2011.

In his art practice he focuses on creating sensory experiences that connect sound, space, image and the body. His performances and installations present physical processes, sensory phenomena and machines in ways that are both musical and theatrical. He works combine DIY electronics, digital systems, robotics, architectural spaces, humans and other life forms. With these elements he composes poetic rituals addressing the space between subject and object, nature and technology, materiality and transcendence, the absurd, curiosity, invention and contemplation.