Miguel La Corte
B. Caracas, Venezuela. 1999.
Music designer and programmer focused in researching and developing new instruments and experiences that address our modern digital condition.
His work has been presented within CTM Festival 2023 in Berlin, Goethe Institute Venezuela and within HKW Berlin, Centre Pompidou in Paris and CCCB in Barcelona through the Cultures d’avenir program.
About <<Ensamble>>
Ensamble: a sonic essay composed of 18 solenoids over 6 paintings by Pepe López and a palitero from Todasana crafted by drum luthier Armando Pantoja.
Ensemble is an exercise in aesthetic synthesis and reflection through rhythm. Based on the 6 rhythmic-visual abstractions painted by Pepe López, a process of collaboration and composition begins, aiming to identify the sequential key hidden within each of these abstractions. This means emphasizing the rhythmic motifs expressed through the color and form of each work.
Beyond this proposal, which presents a synthesis of convergence between sound and color through rhythm, what interests me most in this work is to abstract, present, and remind us that rhythm—its movement and temporality—is a basic function of communication; a fundamental element within any form of social synchronization. In other words, it’s a priceless point for understanding, through the pure and immaterial essence of sound, who we are and where we come from.
We must pause to consider the complexity of conditions and social convergences that must occur for a specific sequence of beats to universally convey a compendium of emotions.
/ PUN KA TUN KI - PUN KA TUN KI - PUN KA TUN KI - PU PU PU PU PUN KA K TUN KI /
Natalio Galán, a Cuban musicologist and composer, explains (referring to some of the great rhythmic motifs known in Latin America, such as son, Latin jazz, and samba) that behind each of these lies a century of mystery—that is, pulses, vibrations, and movements that express the essence and emotional background of the very moment in which they were born. Rhythm marks time, and time marks rhythm.
It’s no coincidence that the rise of the first mechanical clock, attributed to Pope Sylvester II, coincided with the development of musical notation by Guido of Arezzo. Both advances reflect the same medieval impulse to systematize, organize, and rationalize (quote Max Weber) typical elements of daily life that carry and display that (rhythmic) essence of their times.
Contrary to the traditional notion that positions the steam engine as central to the development of this revolution, the clock was the piece that marked the beginning of the industrial era and all subsequent socio-technological revolutions.
The clock created a new mental model for time, enabling broader synchronization of human behavior. The clock began to center human daily life around the rules of strict mechanics, distancing us from the flexibility and variability of the natural world.
/ AAAA EEEE AAAA IIIII AAAA - AAAA EEEE AAAA IIIII AAAA - AAAA EEEE AAAA IIIII AAAA /
Thus, through the mechanical possibilities of solenoids, Ensemble presents rhythms that are universally traditional, presented in their essence: a collection of precise codes that, through their marking, make us feel our time.
I think that through the sonic exercise present in Ensemble, each rhythm teaches us an understanding of the essential conditions that shape a time. That is, beyond seeing rhythm as a musical condition, we can understand how our music—through its rhythmic foundation—defines and expresses our social conditions, allowing us to grasp our time and its politics through its culture.
/ TAKA KATA KA - TAKA KATA KA - TAKA KATA KA - TEKE TETE KE /
References
1. Natalio Galán. Cuba y sus sones. Valencia: Soler, 1983.
2. Joshua Citarella.
“Today, the internet has given us a form of temporal contract, where we have lost a clear notion of our future at the cost of a hyper-specified time that grants us infinite archives of our past.
5. Vice article: Remember When Swatch Invented a New Time System for the Internet?
“In 1998, the Swiss watch company Swatch, in collaboration with MIT Media Lab, proposed an unorthodox idea: to abolish real-time and replace it with a system adapted to the internet, without the need for multiple time zones. This concept of Swatch Internet Time would not be measured by the sun or moon but by 1000 “beats” per day, each lasting one minute and 26.4 seconds. Instead of being based at the Royal Greenwich Observatory in London, Swatch established its global meridian at its headquarters in Biel, Switzerland. “Cyberspace has no seasons, no day, and no night,” said Nicholas Negroponte, founder of MIT Media Lab, during a 1998 announcement, according to Wired. “Internet Time is absolute time for everyone. Internet Time is not geopolitical. It’s global. In the future, for many people, real-time will be Internet Time.””