SquareFuck

Magno Caliman

Proceedings of the International Conference on New Interfaces for Musical Expression

Abstract

SquareFuck is a performance where several Arduino boards are programmed in real time in a live coding setting. It is built sonically through the use of short electrical pulses that are sent to discarded speaker cones without any extra circuitry, generating square waves. Computationally it can be seen as a "hyper-extrapolation" of a Blink Sketch, since it relies, as its synthesis algorithm, on the very simple procedure of setting a pin high, waiting for a set amount of time, and then setting it low. As a performance, it comes from an exploration of the UI/UX of the Arduino IDE and the operating system itself as interfaces. More specifically, it leverages the limitations and constrains of the software ecosystem as affordances for creation. By, for example, not being able to have multiple instances of the IDE open simultaneously targeting different Arduino boards, sonic layers are built from gradual variations of the same base-code which is sent in succession to different boards. This inherent limitation/characteristic of the system led the piece to, structurally, gain a fugato, almost stretto like quality, where sonic material is repeated in rapid succession, with small variations. This interface/system is being developed (much in line with the "NIMEs with a story" submission track) as part of my current PhD research, where I investigate the limits of technical objects in the context of art making - one angle of it being what I named "saturation of a device", that is, a sensibility deriving from an inquiry into to what extent the creative potential of a piece of technology is depleted once it has already been used for the single piece/performance it was originally developed for.

Citation

Magno Caliman. 2022. SquareFuck. Proceedings of the International Conference on New Interfaces for Musical Expression. DOI: 10.21428/92fbeb44.b23043a2 [PDF]

BibTeX Entry

@inproceedings{nime2022_music_23,
 abstract = {SquareFuck is a performance where several Arduino boards are programmed in real time in a live coding setting. It is built sonically through the use of short electrical pulses that are sent to discarded speaker cones without any extra circuitry, generating square waves. Computationally it can be seen as a "hyper-extrapolation" of a Blink Sketch, since it relies, as its synthesis algorithm, on the very simple procedure of setting a pin high, waiting for a set amount of time, and then setting it low. As a performance, it comes from an exploration of the UI/UX of the Arduino IDE and the operating system itself as interfaces. More specifically, it leverages the limitations and constrains of the software ecosystem as affordances for creation. By, for example, not being able to have multiple instances of the IDE open simultaneously targeting different Arduino boards, sonic layers are built from gradual variations of the same base-code which is sent in succession to different boards. This inherent limitation/characteristic of the system led the piece to, structurally, gain a fugato, almost stretto like quality, where sonic material is repeated in rapid succession, with small variations. This interface/system is being developed (much in line with the "NIMEs with a story" submission track) as part of my current PhD research, where I investigate the limits of technical objects in the context of art making - one angle of it being what I named  "saturation of a device", that is, a sensibility deriving from an inquiry into to what extent the creative potential of a piece of technology is depleted once it has already been used for the single piece/performance it was originally developed for.},
 address = {Auckland, New Zealand},
 articleno = {23},
 author = {Magno Caliman},
 booktitle = {Proceedings of the International Conference on New Interfaces for Musical Expression},
 doi = {10.21428/92fbeb44.b23043a2},
 editor = {Raul Masu},
 issn = {2220-4806},
 month = {jun},
 title = {SquareFuck},
 track = {Music},
 url = {https://doi.org/10.21428/92fbeb44.b23043a2},
 year = {2022}
}