法乐 (To face the music)
Nanyang Technological University, School of Art, Design and Media Bachelor's Thesis
Project Details
This project interrogates the materiality of the rattan cane—an instrument of both state and domestic discipline—by repurposing it as a gestural interface for electronic music. The rattan cane has heavy historical baggage, from both colonial and confucian frameworks of discipline and punishment. Through this act, the historical baggage of the cane is integrated into it, while its original purpose of punishment is being transformed, allowing the object to become a site of expression with agency rather than somatic subjugation.
By using microcontrollers (ESP32 and MPU6050) that capture the cane’s rotation and acceleration, these parameters can be mapped to generative audio algorithms made in Max/MSP.
The performance is currently structured in three movements/pieces:
1. Overture
2. Fugue
3. Etude
Each of these pieces aims to explore the kinematics of the cane through various thematic lenses. In Derridean terms, the work performs a deliberate conjuring trick, allowing the specter of the cane's punitive history to remain as a felt weight, even as its mechanical purpose is completely subverted.