After the cats and the dogs, it’s up to the fish to play Dj
To go against the current of our discoveries of the moment, here is an amazing live performance definitely turned towards science. The band Syndrome has managed to give control of their music to a fish! Nothing less!
In my mind, the life of a fish was only about going in circles in a jar. An extremely time-consuming activity. Nothing transcendent, really.
Well, it’s apparently quite the opposite!
Through the project “Dag is a Dj“, the electro-rock band relies on Max/MSP/Jittet, a software that they created from scratch to capture the movements of Dag (the fish), in order to generate music and visual effects just like a live Dj set.
More specifically, the position, the velocity and the acceleration of Dag are used to generate information. These are then analyzed and transformed into music. The notes and the music volume are then connected to the accelerations of the fish, the pitch is based on its position in the aquarium and finally, Dag “draws sounds” according to its movements on the LCD screen. The fish may be aware of its influence on the music, but it’s not probably because he can hear it. It’s probably more a stimulation to the lights and to the crowd around.
The band has sent a presentation of their project to the scientific journal Leonardo, where it is currently under investigation. I leave you to this mesmerizing experience and wish to Dag to not have an epileptic seizure!
