Michael Palumbo and Quasimodo Presents: A Visual Music Exquisite Corpse

Michael Palumbo and Quasimodo Presents: A Visual Music Exquisite Corpse

Featuring a chain of live feeds, one influencing the other, and looping in on itself.

A technique invented by artists in the surrealist movement, Exquisite corpse is a method by
which a collection of words or images is collectively assembled. Each collaborator adds to a
composition in sequence, either by following a rule or by being allowed to see only the end of what the previous person contributed.

Using the Exquisite Corpse as a premise, we will use audio cables and video cables to create a network of audio/visual performances. One performer will pass their audio/visual outputs to another performer, who uses the incoming signals as a source for their own content and, in turn, passes their signals to yet another performer. By arranging the ensemble in a ring, the shared signals form a feedback system that has no beginning or end.

The performers will process and generate audio-visual content using live coding. Live coding is a practice in computational art where an artist writes code in real-time to improvisationally create audio and/or visual content that is presented to a live audience.

Audience members will be invited to move around, lay down, sit, and congregate freely.

Through the introduction of interactive devices and sensing systems, audience members will also be invited to participate in the work and have greater agency in the activity that is
unfolding.