A Short-lived Fault in the System

The source material of the interactive audio-video installation A Short-lived Fault in the System is a sampling of a 1920s futurist silence by Russolo, in which recording wear (vinyl distortions, dust, and scratches †¦) has in fact transformed silence into noise. The project analyses this „audio oxymoron“ and interacts with it by including digital glitches to develop a composition in which noise and sound cannot be distinguished anymore. Similarly, the video originates from the analysis of the sound spectrum through an analogue system of jamming, interruptions and mistakes in the image signal, thus turning faults and imperfections into an aesthetic engine and the subject of the piece. The title of the project indeed refers to the definition of a „glitch“ taken from Wikipedia: a short-lived fault in the system. The aim was therefore to create and develop an aesthetic system generated by glitches and faults, and to make connections between digital and analogue technologies (vinyl and cathode tube monitors with a computer and audio software) through a custom-made electric circuit. Technology is simultaneously the target and the core of the piece, shown as an aesthetic mean through its faults. The aesthetics of failure can be considered a dystopia (an anti-utopia) of modernism, a new post-digital point of view where the medium is no longer the message and technologies have been freed from their perfection through glitches and bugs. Failure is what guides evolution; as a matter of fact, a new utopia starts off with a failure in the system.

Spanghero was born 1979 in Gorizia. Audio and visual artist. His interest is currently focused on improvised music (as double-bass player) and audio art in concerts and sound installations. He has exhibited and presented his audio-visual performances in various international contexts. He has carried out a project of sound records of the exhibition Cinetica: from Getulio Alviani’s collection. A selection of his electro-acoustic works has been presented at the Electronic Music Festival in Columbus, Ohio (USA). His discs Mimesys, Aqvarian, Unsound Zero and Desmodrones have been published by Dedalus Records.

http://www.shipyart.it/michele_spanghero

We met Michele Spanghero at the HAIP Festival last November in Ljubljana and talked with him about his work „A Short-lived Fault in the System“ and his understanding of Noise Music.