FORMS exhibition – Lo Pati

FORMS –Generative Visual Music– Held at Centre d'Art Lo Pati during November 2023 to January 2024 in Amposta, and curated by Irma Vilà, it was the first monographic exhibition which drew together the multiple transformations of the FORMS project since its conception in 2020. This work —like almost the entire catalogue of Playmodes works— revolves around the art-engineering axis and is based on the concept of “image sonification”. From this initial premise, a vast sound universe is explored, including algorithmic graphic scores, spectrogram synthesis, audiovisual automata, contemporary music concerts, or interactive instruments. The creative momentum to give form to a purely audiovisual language, in which image and music are inseparable from each other, has been the impulse for a broad suite of artistic formats which are collected in Lo Pati; from the first manual sketches to the latest installation materialisations, including new work produced for this exhibition. The exhibition incorporates a prominent research component. Both existing works and the development of new creations arise from a research process in innovative formats of expression and exhibition within the field of digital art. We intend to integrate an illustrative aspect of the processes of creation and research, showing the artworks’ preparatory sketches, videos with software captures, and a specialised bibliography which complements how we understand graphic notation, generative music, and data sonification. Likewise, in the new piece Contorns, and in the concert for the CrossingLines ensemble, which premieres as part of the "Diffractions" concert cycle, the territory of the Delta becomes a source of inspiration for Playmodes compositions. Based on geological concepts and their possible musical representation, they have conducted field-work in the area of the Delta thanks to an artistic site-specific residency. The artist Santi Vilanova has experimented with new compositional strategies using the software that the Playmodes team has been continuously developing for almost ten years. Using frequency and amplitude histograms which plot the music in real time, the concert includes research in the field of graphic notation for wind instruments, expanding the scope of research that has so far focused on string instruments, organ, piano and electronics. As may be seen in the exhibition, FORMS displays a formal, playful and expressive research. It appeals to the senses, to aesthetic contemplation, and to the enjoyment inherent in listening to music. It does not get lost in complex conceptual constructions, and offers, in its simplicity, an unpretentious experience that everyone can enjoy, despite the profundity of its many layered readings.