Italian version
.art
07.11.03 Ping Melody, dueting with the Net.
Using the uncatchable data flow of the Net as a process for transforming information is a more and more common aspiration among contemporary artists. The polish artist Pawel Janicki has made a software, based on an open platform made at the Musical Computer Science Laboratory of the University of Genoa, which allows a musician to perform together with an injected data flow on the Net. Ping Melody, in fact, encapsulates a musician's (or a singer's) performance in data packets which are then sent to several servers using the ping protocol, and modified according to the replies, their delay, and the errors encountered. The transmissive body of the Net becomes a sort of distorting filter, a living organism which can modify a performance according to its inner workings, in an anonymous and unconscious collective musical effort. The performer does nothing but to submit his work to the digital nature of the Net's conditions, obtaining a different interaction each time, in a process detailedly visualized on a big screen for the enjoyment of the public.