Pananalyticon – Musikfabrik

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Pananalyticon – 2019

for clarinet, cello, synthesizer, drum set, four iPhones, live video and live electronics.

Performed by Musikfabrik at the HfMT Cologne

Clarinet: Carl Rossman – Keyboard: Benjamin Kobler – Drum Set: Dirk Rothburst – Violoncello: Niklas Seidl

Composition, electronics & video programming:

Pablo Garretón Orignal text: Silvana Mammone

Text edition: Pablo Garretón

Pananalyticon – Program Notes

The title is a crossing of two concepts, at first it refers to the idea of Panopticon, a concept of extended surveillance referred by Foucault’s in his book “Discipline and Punish”. The second part of the tittle refers to the idea of personal data analysis present in today’s artificial intelligence and big data. 

According to Byung-Chul Han, in our times, we left behind the idea of physical control for surveillance to enter into a new era of personal data analysis that drives to the “pschycopolitcs”. In a context of neoliberalism, our use of the internet tools and other social network leave space to all sort of data collection that configure a digital profile that can predict our behaviour and offer to us products that can fit perfectly to our personality. In this era, Politicians can treat us as consumers. According to Han, “there is no need any more for confession by force or torture”, “smartphones are transmitting information about us by voluntary disclosure”

The piece explore the concept of privacy and personal exposure trough smartphones. Each of the four players have an iPhone that is recording their faces during the performance and transmitting it wirelessly to the video computer. Every player has a microphone that captures the electromagnetic sounding signals coming from these devices.

The sounds used in this piece, make relation to the Pananalyticon that analyse the signals, that are created by recording and processing electromagnetic fields, electrical noise of communication. In this manner, the ways in which our identity is measured, stored and transmitted are soundly explored. The prepared percussion and the instruments imitate these sounds and produce ultrashort heterogeneous sounds, which represent the minimal digital unit of analysis: the byte.