Organism + Excitable Chaos / Navid Navab (IR/CA), Garnet Willis (CA)/Photo: vog.photo
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Organism + Excitable Chaos

Navid Navab (IR/CA), Garnet Willis (CA)

A robotically prepared pipe organ driven by a robotically-steered chaotic pendulum

This work probes the form-giving tendencies of nature by drawing kinetic chaos into conversation with sonic turbulence. The chaotic motion of Excitable Chaos, a robotically-steered triple pendulum, drives the aerodynamic thresholds of Organism, a robotically-prepared century-old pipe organ.

Organism dismantles the socio-historical tonality of the organ to sound its turbulent materiality, liberating long-repressed timbres to be heard anew. Excitable Chaos produces chaotic patterns by modulating the mass/orbital relations between its 3 moving arms. As a physical system with nonlinear behavior it highlights how, in nature, even events at the smallest scales of magnitude compel emergent behaviors whose next states are unknown.

The generative movement of Excitable Chaos conducts Organism’s sonic behavior. The resulting turbulent sonifications of chaos serve as meditations on the cascading sense of more-than-oneness that develops spontaneously in nature, at the brink of unfolding futures.

Bio

  • Photo: GRMS 2023 Elisa Sibert

    Navid Navab

    IR/CA

    Navid Navab is recognized as a media-alchemist and anti-disciplinary composer with a background in biomedical sonification. Navab’s work illuminates the intersection of investigative arts, media archeology, and philosophical biology and is characterized by sculpturous engagement with transductive structures of liveliness. His recent creations orchestrate sensory attunement to the dissipative formations and uncanny forms of order that flow from machinic engagement with excitable dynamics of matter.

  • Photo: Garnet Willis

    Garnet Willis

    CA

    Garnet Willis is a Canadian interdisciplinary artist, audio-engineer, and instrument builder. Garnet’s research investigates the crossroads between sensation, form over time, sentient matter, and material agency. He combines his disparate skills to produce multivariate artworks that tend to revolve around sound. He develops shapeshifting sculptures that utilize complex material calculations driven by internal stresses resulting in unpredictable, real time changes in physical form.

Credits

Concept, composition, sculpture, programming, design, electronics, sonification: Navid Navab // Engineering, design, sculpture, electronics: Garnet Willis // Research partners: SAT Montréal with Québec Ministry of Innovation, Topological Media Lab with Fonds de Recherche du Québec, X-IO Technologies UK // Assistance: Charles Bicari, Camille Desjardins, Jean-Michaël Celerier, Eric L’Ecuyer // Residency: Recto-Verso, Hexagram, Milieux

Support: Canada Council for the Arts, Conseil des arts et des lettres du Québec, Conseil des arts de Montréal, Le Salon Richmond 1861