DEUS CANTANDO (God, singing) for computer-controlled piano and screened text

“DEUS CANTANDO” plays with the interpretive capacities of the human brain. Transcription software makes it possible to reconstruct the frequency spectrum of a spoken text by means of a piano. Winfried Ritsch’s computer-controlled piano performs the “composition” with consummate precision. Each one of the 88 electromechanical fingers is capable of up to 16 keystrokes per second. The interpretive capacities of the human brain then transform what were initially abstract musical structures into a sequence of words in a human language. The result is an emphatic plea to save the Blue Planet and to protect human existence on Earth—the text of the 2009 Declaration of the International Environmental Criminal Court that was founded at the World Venice Forum pursuant to an initiative of Adolfo Pérez Esquivel and the Dalai Lama.

credit: Peter Ablinger (AT), Winfried Ritsch (AT), Thomas Musil (AT), Intitute for Electronic Music Graz