Between this and that is it

old typewriter augmented with AI
2023 | Interactive installation
Antoni Rayzhekov & Martin Murer
Between this and that is it (2023) by Antoni Rayzhekov & Martin Murer

modified 80s electronic typewriter, augmented with AI

“Between This and That is It” is an interactive artwork which augments an old typewriter with an AI, blending several decades of computerized optimization of text production. The artwork employs an offline processing machine learning-based language model embedded in a typical office typewriter from the 1980s. Deliberately diverting from the pervasive conversational user interface, the interaction style is based on a well-defined minimalist pattern of complementing two user-supplied words with a third word that – in the model – lies in the middle of the other two. This constraint interaction invites to explore the limits of the semantic space of language models and poses questions related to the topology of meaning, with respect to truthfulness, biases, and cliches, by creating a semi-intelligent poetic co-performance involving the audience.

This project seeks to foster a discussion on the creative collaboration between humans and AI within the constraints of machine learning technologies embedded into objects from the near past.

The advances in artificial intelligence and particularly the exponential development of language models have enabled a new generation of artistic research and production in the realm of New Media, Interactive Art, AI, and HCI. Language Models use multidimensional semantic vector spaces created by capturing the meaning and the context of the (textual) input into a series of numerical vectors called embeddings. Those embeddings are positioned in a multidimensional space in respect to their semantics, interrelationships, and context. Language models rely on vast amounts of textual training data obtained mainly from the web. Therefore, they naturally inherit all built-in biases, stereotypes and ideological beliefs.

The experience and the perception of the interaction are shaped by a hybrid space shared between the audience members and the AI, the mechanical limitations of the typewriter, the embedded mini-computer’s computational capacity, and the language model itself.

Special thanks to AIHI Department at the University of Salzburg, Austria

Work-in-progress at the Schmiede Festval - Hallein, Austria // September, 2023

Drawing Exercises

for two performers and a bio-sensing drawing machine
2023 | Interactive installation
part of DIGI-Sense project; A. Rayzhekov, C. Schnugg, D. Brill & M. Jahn
Drawing Exercises

two biofeedback and movement wearables, custom drawing software, projection

"Drawing Exercises" is a participatory performance piece by Antoni Rayzhekov for the DIGI-Sense project, a performative installation in which the audience become the performers. A series of drawings are performed by two participants together, who have to find out the movements, velocities, and strategies to carry them out.

The project aims to artistically explore different senses (visual information) and bodily movement for sensemaking with digital technologies. The participants in the "Drawing Exercises" installation wear custom-made sensor sets on their bodies, which are placed on their chest: a movement sensor, a heart rate sensor, and a stress sensor. In the first three tasks, the participants need to learn to collaborate through their movements to make sense of the interaction process between the sensors and the drawings they create through their movement shown in the projection. In the fourth task, the stress level starts to influence the drawing as a first challenge. In the final task, the heart rate sensor influences the drawing process, which challenges the two participants to integrate a new factor that cannot be controlled actively into their embodied drawing process, namely their haeart beats control the drawing process only when occuring at the same time. As sensemaking is also understood as a social process, the duos of participants in the interactive installation "Drawing Exercises" have to learn to collaborate with their movements to fulfill the following five tasks: draw a horizontal line, draw a vertical line, draw a circle, draw a landscape, draw a house.

Researching the body and movement through artistic performative installations for collaborative digital sensemaking. by Daniela Brill, Claudia Schnugg, Christian Stary, and Antoni Rayzhekov. 2023. In Proceedings of the 20th International Conference on Culture and Computer Science: Code and Materiality (KUI '23). Association for Computing Machinery, New York, NY, USA, Article 1, 1–11.

Curator: Claudia Schnugg, Researcher: Daniela Brill, Hardware: Markus Jahn; Presented at NOVA festival 2023, 16-30 September, Bucharest Romania

The Distance Between Us is Music

participatory sound installation
2023 | Interactive 8-channel sound installation
part of DIGI-Sense project
The Distance Between Us is Music(2023) by Antoni Rayzhekov

surveillance camera, custom computer vision & sound generating software, monitor

"The Distance Between Us is Music" is a participatory octophonic sound installation, employing custom created computer vision and generative music systems. The interactive artwork explores the group dynamics of listening, interdependence and sense-making through sound and interactivity by using surveillance camera and real-time people detection algorithm which is generating music based on the distances between the audience members. The performative installation invites the audience who instantaneously become performers to move together, change the distances between them while exploring the emerging group dynamics and the available space in different rhythms. It is an act of listening and moving as part of sensemaking of space - physical and relational space - and creating sounds.

At the entrance to The Distance Between Us Is Music a monitor makes the movements of individuals in the space of the installation visible. It shows individual tracks, and the distance between the performers active in the installation. When performers leave the installation, their tracks only fade slowly, which adds an important temporal dimension. A single performer in the installation is never alone, as digitally the artist is always present as a partner to interact with. As the performers in the installation should focus on the sensemaking of the sound, space, and interaction with others, the visual representation is not intended as a guide for performers to understand their impact on the sound. It rather is a visual clue of what is and has been happening in the installation before they enter the space, a clue that is intended to make sense after the experience.

The project embodies a form of sonification of audience’s behavior and sense-making process, creating an unique experience where the borders between listener-audience and performer-author are entirely blurred. By creating such an active environment of sonic creation and feedback-loop between artwork and audience we situate the actual sense-making process as primal material of the artwork.

Presented ta "Post-Digital Intersections: Intersecting Realities" group exhibition organized by Marginal at Ștefania Palace, Timișoara, curators: Dr. Claudia Schnugg & Andrei Tudose, part of Part of Timișoara 2023, Romania; June 15th – July 2nd 2023

On responsibility of knowledge

for dripping books and voices
2023 | water driven sound installation
UNTIL THE LAST DROP Series
UNTIL THE LAST DROP:On responsibility of knowledge (2023) - photo by Bozhana Dimitrova

old books, guitar amplifier, electronics, IV system, metal bucket, water, interactive projection

12 key publications which have marked the development of European thought. The most important quote of each book streams drop by drop, word by word. To what extend this knowledge is responsible for the way we live now, for the achievements we make, and for the damage we deliver? Knowledge is a responsibility, not a weapon.

In the installation are included quotations from: Plato “The Republic” 375 b.c.e; Aristotle “The Physics" 4 century b.c.e.; Thomas Aquinas “Summa Theologica” unfinished 1265-1273; Francis Bacon “On the Proficience and Advancement of Learning, Divine and Human” 1605;Galileo Galilei “Discorsi e Dimostrazioni Matematiche, intorno e due nuove scienze” 1638; Charles Darwin “On the Origin of Species by Means of Natural Selection, or the Preservation of Favoured Races in the Struggle of Life” 1858; Karl Marx “The Capital: a critique of political economy” 1867; Louis Pasteur “Les Microbes organisés, leur rôle dans la Fermentation, la Putréfaction et la Contagion” 1878; Marie Curie “Recherches sur les Substances Radioactives” 1904; Albert Einstein “On a Heuristic Viewpoint Concerning the Production and Transformation of Light” 1905; Simone de Beauvoir “Le Deuxième Sexe”, 1949; Alan Turing “On Computable Numbers, with an Application to the Entscheidungs problem”1936; Frantz Fanon “The Wretched in the Earth” 1961

Special thanks to prof. Benjamin Goldberg, historian of science and philosophy at the University of South Florida, USA.

Gallery Plus 359, Sofa Bulgaria // March 20 - April 22, 2023
The exhibition is supported by Gallery Plus 359, curator Ralitsa Gerasmova; photo by Bozhana Dimitrova / Gallery Plus 359

GENERATION COMFORT

for dripping air-conditioner and almost natural sounds
2023 | water-driven sound installation
UNTIL THE LAST DROP Series

old air conditioner external body, guitar amplifier, electronics, IV system, metal bucket, water

According to Charles Darwin evolution is fostered by adaptation. Today we are born in a world so adapted to our needs. The machines are but a part of our nature. The seasons are controlled by a remote. While pressing the buttons are we striving on our way of a new adaptation?

We owe our existence to water. Without it there will be no life, no people, no oceans, no oxygen. At the same time, water is a resource we daily exhaust, pollute, contaminate, with almost no repercussions.

Water is also an information network, carrying the code of natural renewal, the memory of millions of years and of every little life that has passed through this world. Water is life.

The installation is hooked on IV systems which is carefully refilled each day by the gallery employees. What will happen when there is no-one to refill the system?

Gallery Plus 359, Sofa Bulgaria // March 20 - April 22, 2023
The exhibition is supported by Gallery Plus 359, curator Ralitsa Gerasmova

Trio

for dripping piano, violin and trumpet
2022 | 3-channel water-driven sound installation
UNTIL THE LAST DROP Seres
UNTIL THE LAST DROP (2022) - photo by Angel Zgechev

old piano, violin, trumpet, amplifiers, electronics, IV systems, metal buckets, water

sound installation by Antony Raizhekov in collaboration with: Bilyana Vucheva (violin), Rosen Zahariev (flugelhorn), Mathias Lebusche (piano); curator Ralitsa Gerasimova

Drop by drop…..the last drops of sustenance are running out. Exploitation knows no boundaries, knows no humility. While the last drops are flowing we are in the illusion of possession, but who knows how many are left?

The last drops of our humility are dripping. The last gulps of our very existence trickle down our already warped, twisted selves. Not much left, isn't it still dripping... This exhibition is dedicated to the last drops. Of those slow trickles that hint at the end, but trap us in the hope worn by the rest. Drip by drip...hear the drops, see the drops. Listen to their profile, touch them. These are the last straws.

Antoni Raizhekov's exhibition "Until the Last Drop" includes sculptural installations using flowing water that allows the viewer to experience the water drops, both as a physical object and sound form in the gloomy atmosphere of a dystopian temple, where the last drops sing their swan song.

ReBonkers, Varna Bulgaria // August 29 - September 25, 2022
Gallery Plus 359, Sofa Bulgaria // March 20 - April 22, 2023
The exhibition is financed by the National Culture Fund, program Creative Initatives'21 and the Varna Municipality Culture Directorate and Gallery Plus 359 (2023); photo by Angel Zgechev

ARTIKULAT

for biofeedback-articulated bass-flute, contra bass clarinet, piano, viola and audience under surveillance
2022| interactive sound-performance feat. NAMES
ARTIKULAT - photo by Peter Raijekov

A work commissioned by the NAMES Ensemble (New Art and Music Ensemble Salzburg) composed by Antoni Rayzhekov in collaboration with Marina Iglesias - body-bass flute, Anna Lindenbaum - body-viola, Marco Sala - body-contra bass clarinet and Matthias Leboucher - body-piano

ARTIKULAT is a complex, participatory sound performance-installation for four musicians, an audience under surveillance and an audio-visual computer system including biofeedback, sound and visual synthesis and surveillance camera. Each musician is equipped with a special wearable biofeedback device – monitoring the body’s bio-signals during the performance, such as: heart rate, stress level and body movement. Each musician’s bio-signals are projected on the stage in real-time and are modulating short audiovisual recordings constructing the piece.

The work extends beyond the traditional musical performance, focusing solely on the articulation of the sound by the bio-signals of the performers, exposing something very personal and corporal, which usually remains hidden from the audience. By completely removing the material presence of the musical instruments on the stage during the performance we can focus on the detailed articulation of the physical and sonic experience of the performers. However, the computer system includes a surveillance camera, that detects every movement of the audience which directly affects the performance’s sound. The game of performing-while- listening now is shared between the performers and the audience and the group dynamics of the audience together with the bio-signals of the four musicians drives the resulting sound piece by creating a feedback loop between audience and performers. That “performing while listening” between audience and ensemble, as a feedback loop of social interaction, is explored in this work.

Première: April 21st, 2022, Toihaus Theater, Salzburg, Austria; Tour: TOPLOCENTRALA, Sofia, Bulgaria, December 10-11 2022.
With the support of Bmkoes and the Embassy of Austria in Bulgaria; Photos by Peter Raijekov

Fragile Perspectives

2022- 2021 | 5-channel sound installation
Fragile Perspectives at GDAP, Singapore

glass, metal, 5 speakers, electronics, A.I., news data, sonification

What do news landscapes look like and sound? And how can we transform them into tangible objects to see clusters of over-reporting or hear missing voices in under-reported topics? Based on the very large news information set, new glass tangible objects of news landscapes were produced by clustering 10000s of individual news articles into 300 dimensions, then reducing these dimensions to 3D maps. These 3D maps were then manufactured as glass objects and digitally scanned to excite virtual strings to produce the sound using a data sonification method based on physical modelling sound synthesis.

Nominated and exhibited at the "Global Digital Arts prize" exhibition in Singapore, organised by the NTU Institute of Science and Technology for Humanity (NISTH) and NTU School of Art, Design and Media (ADM), finalist at the Falling Walls in category "Art&Science". The artwork was presented at IRCAM // Center Pompidou during MediaFutures's DemoDays, as well as it was selected and presented at the art exhibition of C&CC 2022 in Venice and was part of the group exhibition “HOW SOON IS NOW?” in Structura Gallery, Sofia wth curators Maria Vassileva and Walter Seidl

Artwork, concept, programming, sound-design by Antoni Rayzhekov; JECT-SENSE project: Data collaboration: JECT.AI - Neil Maiden, Konstantinos Zachos; curator: Claudia Schnugg; Project production management at Grand Garage: Franz Gregor Dörfler; 3D Department at Grand Garage: Michael Eckl, Stefan Eder, Paul Kößler; 3D modeling: Dimiter Ovtcharov; Glass creation / Metal work: Günther Mausz, Thomas Aschenbrenner; Tatjana Schinko, Benjamin Bergmann, Max Meindl

THE EVASIVE CHOIR

ПРЕМЪЛЧИТЕЛИ (original title)
2021 | 30-channel sound installation

THE EVASIVE CHOIR - photos by Rayna Teneva

30 found interviews of Bulgarian politicans, 30 tin-cans, 30 speakers, 30 modified note-stands, electronics; variable dimensions

The sound installation “The Evasive Choir” creates a kind of “a chorus of the muffled”, which covers an important period in the recent past of Bulgaria. 30 open tincans contain speakers that reproduce processed interviews of key figures from the political and public life in Bulgaria since 1989. The interviews were digitally processed, removing the spoken words and leaving only the exclamations, the sighs, the inarticulate sounds of discomfort or those suggesting silence. All voices sound at the same time, keeping the length of the conversation - with the interlocutor, with each other, and with the audience in the exhibition

The work simultaneously archives and exposes the process of passing over in silence thus setting it as one of the possible reasons for the condition of society, as well as a metaphor for the inherited silence, atrophied public media and the difficulty of democratic processes happening without overcoming such a specific kind of “national silence”.

Vernissage: Mar 5, 2021 – Apr 21, 2021 @ ICA Sofia
Curator(s): Kalin Serapionov and Krassimir Terziev

The exhibition is part of the 2021 annual international program of ICA-Sofia entitled "Superpositions" suprted by National Culture Fund, Bulgaria. Photos by Rayna Teneva

#BIOCOIN: Duet in self-determination

Music of bacteria grown from a soviet and ukrainian coins
2021 | Interactive sound installation / video
ORGANIC OSCILLATORS Series
#BIOCOIN: Duet in Self-determination, 2021

glass petri-dishe, Ukrainian coin and Soviet coin, epoxy, stereo speakers, Organic Oscllators Sculpture; variable dimensions

The third installation of the #BIOCOIN Series - a multi-year interdisciplinary project exploring the sonic properties of bacteria found on money, is specially created for the TETRAMATYKA Festival in Lviv, Ukraine in October 2021 using one petri-dish filled with agar (bacterial culture medium) and two coins, one Soviet and one Ukrainian. The emerging bacterial and fungi cultures are imaged and further sonified by the ORGANIC OSCILLATOR optoelectronic sound instrument.

Antoni Rayzhekov - concept, sound and motion-graphics, software/hardware in collaboration with the micro-biologists Ivan Roman and Alexander Gromyko (Collection of microorganisms at the Ivan Franko National University of Lviv) and Dimiter Ovtcharov (sculpture production 2018).

The project is supported by the Austrian Program of Academic Exchange - OeAD

#BIOCOIN: Bulgarian Lev

Music of bacteria colonies grown from money
2021 | Interactive sound installation
ORGANIC OSCILLATORS Series
#BIOCOIN 2021: photo by Antoni Rayzhekov / Borijana Pandova

8 glass petri-dishes, coins of 0.5 lev and 1lev, banknotes of 2, 5, 10, 20, 50 and 100 lev, epoxy, stainless steel, aluminium frame, built-in all-in-one computer, stereo speakers, amplifier, microcontroller, 8 potentiometers, custom software; dimensions: 120х60х11cm

In 2021 the project was awarded with a stipendium by the Bulgarian National Cultural Fund (NCF) within the program “Creative Initiatives” and the creation of the interactive sound installation #BIOCOIN begun by using bulgarian coins and banknotes in collaboration with mag. biologist Ava Cherkez and eng. Petia Logar from the team of DIACHIM Sofia.

The project #BIOCOIN examines critically the notion of value, transferring it into the realm of the biological and then the sonic domains in order to suggest a different perspective towards the distribution and the circulation of money. In doing so, it proposes an alternative notion of a “sonic” value.

Vernissage: 4 - 28 March 2021 a group exhibition "Occurrences of Abundance” @ Sofia Arsenal – Museum of Contemporary Art currated by Günther Seyfried (Austria) & Martina Yordanova (Bulgaria) - National Gallery, Bulgaria.

The project is supported by the National Culture Fund, Creative Initiatives'20, Bulgaria. Photos by Boryana Pandova.

PANDEMIC SOUND MAP

Music from pandemic statistics
2020 | interactive sound installation

ORGANIC OSCILLATORS

COVID19 statistical data, steel, aluminium frame, 186 circuit breakers, electronics, speakers, custom software; dimensions: 200x100x10cm

The interactive sound installation “PANDEMIC SOUND MAP” transforms the statistical data on the spread of the SARS COVID-19 virus into sound, by means of sonication process based on the number of infected per day per country. On a metal political map of the world, 186 switches are located in the center of each country. The installation allows any number of countries to be "switched on" or "switched off" interactively in one common sound picture. This sound representation provides a new perspective on the pandemic, with the expressive means of sound art and digital technologies, reflecting the different approaches to controlling the pandemic, its scale, distribution and current state. The installation is an artistic metaphor for the impact of the pandemic crisis in political, social and cultural aspects, which, as a circuit breaker, almost "switched off" the world economy.

The project was part of the group exhibition "ART AND POLITICS - CONFRONTATIONS AND COEXISTENCE" curated by Maria Vassileva at the Structura gallery, including works by Otto Dix, Hannah Höch, Joseph Beuys, Günther Uecker, Gerhard Richter, Antoni Rayzhekov. "Pandemic sound map" was funded by the DA LAB Foundation, Goethe Institute-Bulgarien and supported by Structura Gallery, Sofia

Exhibition opening: 27 Oct - 9 Dec 2020 @ Structura gallery, Sofia

BOREOUT

inspired by Marcel Duchamp's interview for BBC [1968]
2019-2018 | Interactive A/V installation driven by boredom

BOREOUT 2018 - 2020

3-channel 4x2m projection, glass, EEG headset, electronics, custom software, stereo speakers, chair, lamp

BOREOUT is an interactive 3-channel audiovisual installation that is controlled by the visitors' tendency towards boredom or attention. The installation uses a mobile EEG brain-computer interface connected to an electronic system that analyzes brain waves in real-time and is assisted by artificial intelligence algorythms. If the visitor wearing the brain sensor is bored enough, the image and sound become recognizable and assembled in their original form, or, respectively, "blurred" when interest is detected by the system driving the installation. As a result, the image and sound oscillate between a "focused" and an "unfocused" state, leaving the visitor in a very peculiar state of "readiness" and "expectation".

The project was initially supported by Akademie Schloss Solitude (Stuttgart), Robert Bosch GmbH (Reninngen) and Wimmelforschung (Berlin) in 2018, and developed further at FERAL Labs Artist-In-Residence 2019 in Salzburg and Hallein - Austria during Schmiede 2019. Selected and supported by DigitalSpring 2020 Salzburg, Austria within the exhibition "STAND BY" at 5020 Gallery (canceled due COVID19)

RE_SONANCE [installation]

for an old piano, biofeedback equipped performer and four blank music sheets
2018-2017 | interactive audio-visual performance-installation
RE_SONANCE 2017-2018 Salzburg

The project "RE_SONANCE" has continued its development within the artist-in-residency program at the Human- Computer-Interaction Center at the University of Salzburg, Austria in March 2017, where an old piano was used and four blank music sheets capable to "remember" and modulate, through their shape, short sounds of the piano by using computer vision and granular sound-synthesis.

Supported by: SubNet Air & HCI Center at University of Salzburg, Austria

2017, RE_SONANCE - Performance-Installation in STUDIO3 at the Human- Computer-Interaction Center at the University of Salzburg - Austria

2018, RE_SONANCE - Installation at the group exhibition "Possible bodies:be my guest" - City Gallery Lehen - Salzburg - Austria

#BIOCOIN: Euro

Music of bacteria colonies grown from money
2018 | interactive audiovisual installation and performance
ORGANIC OSCILLATORS Series
#BIOCOIN

#BIOCOIN is an interdisciplinary project exploring the sonic properties of bacteria found on money. #BIOCOIN is an audiovisual installation and a performative instrument that transforms, in real-time bacteria colonies in petri-dishes grown from coins and banknotes into music. The installation performs through a technique called sonification or auditory display— a process and a methodology of translating digital data into sound.

The project is created by Antoni Rayzhekov in collaboration with the micro-biologist Tanja Machuer (Robert Bosch Research Institute, Renningen, DE), Hagen Betzwieser - camera & photography, Lisa Przioda - Coordination (Robert Bosch GmbH), Sophie-Charlotte Thieroff - Coordination (Akademie Schloss Solitude) within the Art&Science and Business residency "PLATFORM12" - a fellowship program and an art residency by Akademie Schloss Solitude (Stuttgart,DE), Robert Bosch GmbH and Wimmelforshung (Berlin, DE) in 2018.

Première: 09/06/2018 @ Symposium "Rethinking Affordances" currated by Ashley Scarlett & Martin Zeilinger - Akademie Schloss Solitude - Stuttgart, Germany

#BIOCOIN: Solo

for living bacteria found on money
2018 | interactive audiovisual installation and performance
ORGANIC OSCILLATORS Series
#BIOCOIN

#BIOCOIN:SOLO is an audiovisual installation and a performative instrument transforming, in real-time, living bacteria grown from coins and banknotes, into sound by using computer vision and sound synthesis. The installation performs through a technique called sonification or auditory display — a process and a methodology of translating digital data into sound.

The project is created by Antoni Rayzhekov in collaboration with the micro-biologist Tanja Machuer (Robert Bosch Research Institute, Renningen, DE) and Dimiter Ovtcharov - 3D modeling & sculpture production, Hagen Betzwieser - camera & photography, Lisa Przioda - Coordination (Robert Bosch GmbH), Sophie-Charlotte Thieroff - Coordination (Akademie Schloss Solitude) within the Art&Science and Business residency "PLATFORM12" - a fellowship program and an art residency by Akademie Schloss Solitude (Stuttgart, DE), Robert Bosch GmbH and Wimmelforshung (Berlin, DE) in 2018.

Première: 09/06/2018 @ Symposium "Rethinking Affordances" currated by Ashley Scarlett & Martin Zeilinger - Akademie Schloss Solitude - Stuttgart, Germany

Tissues

for Heart, Brain, Lungs, Skin Cells and Modified Microscope
2018 | interactive audiovisual installation and performance
ORGANIC OSCILLATORS Series
ORGANIC OSCILLATORS

How do heart cells differ in sound compared to brain-cells or lung from skin cells? Organic Oscillators explores novel sonification techniques to examine the cellular structures and patterns as sonic scores, revealing the underlying relationships through sound. This is done with advanced microscopic imagery and computer-vision. A specialized software was created for the project, which enables one to examine and sonify an image seen from a microscope in real-time. Different specimens of cells were investigated and their sound qualities were compared. A range of different organic structures were similarly examined through several sonification techniques using image analysis, which included motion tracking, topological scanning and curvature unfolding.

Associated Researchers:
Ina Attree, Philippe Huber, Stéphanie Bouillot - Biosciences and Biotechnology Institute of Grenoble, CEA-Grenoble France

Project partners:
Akademie Schloss Solitude, Stuttgart Germany — Land Salzburg, Austria — Atelier Arts Sciences, Grenoble — CEA — Hexagone Scène Nationale Arts Sciences, Meylan — FabLab — La Casemate - Grenoble.

Credits:
Organic Oscillators is created by Antoni Rayzhekov in collaboration with Dimiter Ovtcharov - 3D modeling & sculpture production.

Exhibition opening: 01-10/02/2018 - EXPERIMENTA, Arts Sciences Biennale, Grenoble / France; (see booklet)

TOPOLOGY OF THE SONIC BODY

Duet for body and scanner feat. Federica Dauri
2017 | Audiovisual performance-installation
2016 | Video-installation
TOPOLOGY OF THE SONIC BODY

"Topology of the sonic body" is an audio-visual body-installation performance, investigating the sonic properties of the performing body and its curvature in space through sound. A custom-designed audio- visual synthesizer is decoding the metamorphosis of the body- artist and performer Federica Dauri, translating in real-time, the body curvature into a stunning sound and light performance-installation.

“The body can be perceived as a complex living surface, consisting of multiple curves, manifesting itself through shape and topology. In that sense, it is a map, which forms a musical score – based on the body curvature, its shape, its expressive tensity and physical structure being the primary and only source of the sonic material. A specially designed machine is scanning the body and translating its curvature directly into sound. There are no prerecorded sounds or any other external sonic materials, than the body curve itself, extracted by a white line scanning the performer's body in real-time, during the entire piece.”

"The Sonic Body" - Interview with Federica Dauri & Antoni Rayzhekov — Sep 19, 2017 at Schloss-post

Première: 23/09/2017 @ Digital Arts Festival - National Academy of Arts - Sofia, Bulgaria

THESECRETCORNER.NET

after Johannes Cladder's The Secrect Corner (1984)
2017 | net-art

THESECRETCORNER.NET

The original art project The Secret Corner by Johannes Cladders (1924–2009), the first jury chairman of Akademie Schloss Solitude was created between 1987–1993 and was installed at the French Académie de Muséologie Evocatoire and has been part of Akademie Schloss Solitude's archive since 2016. A box with 9 slides and 3 drawers was hidden in Warelwast (France), behind a special door equipped with an electric-mechanical system controlled by the direction of the wind. The box contains different every-day objects, trophies, drawings, as well as nits own descriptions and plans, carefully organized by Johannes Cladders with many references to artists from the Fluxus movement.

In 2016 Antoni Rayzhekov in cooperation with Jean-Baptiste Joly, Hagen Betzwieser (Camera Interviews) followed an idea by Jacques Caumont to transform Cladders's The Secret Corner in a online format. When the winds are favorable, the hidden part of the website becomes available and one can explore the secret corner and its contents, as well as insightful interviews with Jacques Caumont, about the work.

The project is commissioned by Jacques Caumont and created by Jean-Baptiste Joly - mentor, text, interviewer; Antoni Rayzhekov - photography, interactive stop-motion photo-animation, programming,software, hardware, web-design; Hagen Betzwieser (film and editing), Angela Butterstein (PR), Anita Carey-Yard (archive), Horst Kaag (technic), Françoise Le Penven (guardian angel), Katherine Vanovitch (translation), Kimberly Bradley (translation); In collaboration with: Martin Cladders, Wilhelma Cladders, Jennifer Gough-Cooper; in Normandy: Technical Support: Roland Tiercelin

Exhibition opening: 14/09/2017 - Akademie Schloss Solitude / Internet

THE PINZGAU ETUDE

for Cheese and Modified Microscope
2017 | video of live performance
ORGANIC OSCILLATORS Series
THE PINZGAU ETUDE

An old microscope is transformed into an audiovisual instrument, revealing the hidden structures of of the special PINZGAU cheese. A custom designed software, created specially for the project, transforms in real-time the microscope image into sound, using computer-vision and image analysis such as morphology, color intensities, shape extraction. This information is used further to generate the sonic representation of the microorganisms and micro-structures. The project explores the relation between structure and chaos through sound and music.

Supported by: Land Salzburg Austria, Ortung Stuhlfelden 2017, Austra

Public presentation: 09/09/2017 @ Ortung Sthulfelden, Austria

RE_SONANCE

for extended piano and performer
2016 | Performance
RE_SONANCE

The piece RE_SONANCE was written during the residency at Akademie Schloss Solitude, Stuttgart in 2016 as an attempt to explore my idiosyncratic way of playing piano. The research continued in 2017 within the Artist-in-Residence program of SubNET and Center for Human-Computer Interaction at University of Salzburg as a research in Biologically-Augmented Audiovisual instruments.

More in the Interview: Biologically-Augmented Piano @ SchlossPost

Première: 24/06/2016 @ Sommerfest - Akademie Schloss Solitude - Stuttgart, Germany

Photo by Judith Engel

SOMAPHONY

solo for stressed performer
feat. Katharina Koeller
2016 | Audiovisual Composition
SOMAPHONY feat. Katharina Koeller

SOMAPHONY is a project commissioned by Intel in 2016, resulted in an audiovisual composition that can be played as an instrument and is embodied in a physical object representing the interface to the composition itself. The interface is named - SOMAPHONE - a device integrating generative music and visualization technology in one combined audio-visual instrument. It uses biofeedback, such as heart-rate, Galvanic Skin Response, movement and gestures as a natural and expressive interaction between the composition and the performer. more...
Team: Katharina Koeller, Antoni Rayzhekov, Dimiter Ovtcharov, Niki Malinov
Première: MusicTechFest 2016 - Berlin, Germany

10VE

for Two Amplified Bodies and Surveilled Audience
2014 - 2015 | Audiovisual Performance-Installation
10VE

feat. Antoni Rayzhekov & Katharina Koeller @ Theater Spielraum, Vienna - Festival KulturHerbst

"10VE" is an audiovisual performance installation investigating on the relationship between surveillance and private space by interconnecting performers and audience using motion tracking, sonification of biofeedback and movement. more...

Première: 24-26/09/2014 @ Old City Prison - ATALAIA Artes Performativas - Ourique, Portigal
"Content Award 2015" category "Sound & Vision" - Vienna, Austria

Photo by Dimiter Ovtcharov

10VE:SEQUENCE FOR TWO

for Two Amplified Bodies
feat. Antoni Rayzhekov & Katharina Koeller
2014 | Performance / Video Installation

10VE:SEQUENCE FOR TWO

10VE:SEQUENCE FOR TWO is a duet for two amplified bodies equipped with wireless biofeedback and movement devices, measuring the performers heart-rate, stress-level, breath and movement. The synchronizations and correlations of the signals generate a musical representation of the occurring processes between their bodies.

ATALAIA Artes - Artist In Residence
Duration: 3:50", format: HD Video, filmed 2014 at Cineteatro, Ourique - Portugal

2016.04 Athens Biennale - Transmission Art Festival - Athens, Greece
2016.01 Athens Video Dance Project 2016 - Athens, Greece

ALTERATION

Duet for Step-Dancer and Chello-Plate
feat. WOOGURU
2014 | Audiovisual Performance
ALTERATION

A reactive audio-visual environment is acting as a performative instrument and a partner. An examination of the emerging creative digital behaviours as a part of nature. The project is an investigation on how to co-exist in such new environments by researching on new choreographic strategies emerging from it. In collaboration with WOOGURU
Theater Spielraum - Vienna, Austria

Première: ALL THAT's JAZZ Festival - curated by Moving Poets at Kunst am Spreeknie - Schöneweide Art Festival
Novilla Art Space - Berlin, Germany

Self_Assembling_Sym_Phony

for Confused Audiovisual Machine
2014 | Audiovisual Installation
Self_Assembling_Sym_Phony


Self_Assembling_Sym_Phony is a participatory generative audio-visual composition, physically embodied as a 3D projection mapping audio-visual installation of a self assembling musical piece.

White Room @ Kunstraum Pro Arte Hallein, Austria
11 September - 04 October 2014
Group Exhibition: Schnittschtelle 2014 - Selbstassemblierung

Black Room @ Schmiede Festival, Hallein Austria
11. – 21. SEPTEMBER 2014, Alten Salzfabrik - Perner Insel - Hallein, Austria

MOTHERBOX

2013-2014 | Audiovisual installation
MOTHERBOX MOTHERBOX

MOTHERBOX is series of site-specific audiovisual installations representing
"gates" or glitches between the digital and the physical reality.

Falmouth City Library 3D model by John Lee [2014]
Concept, Music & Animation by Antoni Rayzhekov
Dungeon 3D model by Emanuel Andel & Antoni Rayzhekov [2013]

.circle

Audio visual concert for Harp & Hang, SpaceTime Helix and Reactive Visuals
2014 | Audiovisual Performance
circle

An experiment between Martina Stock & Christian Schratt, Michela Pelusio and Antoni Rayzhekov - produced at Schmiede "RETURN" 2013 Hallein - Austria

Photo by Jannik Weylandt

Pan::Ik

collaboration with Federica Dauri & Alberto Novello
2013 | Audiovisual Performance
Pan::Ik

A study in motion-tracking, generative visual and sonic material, developed in collaboration with Federica Dauri and Alberto Novello, during our residencies at STEIM & DansMakers 2013 in Amsterdam - The Netherlands

Epi::Akten

collaboration with Federica Dauri & Alberto Novello
2013 | Performance

Epi::Akten

Epi::Akten is a performance-study in real-time motion-tracking & sonification of body movement with Federica Dauri and Alberto Novello, during our residency at Trasformatorio Zero in Montalbano Castle, Sicily - Italy, including a participation at T.Off festival for contemporary dance in Cagliari, Sardinia - Italy in 2013.

Wasserturm

Ciference Symphony & This.Play
2013 | Media enhanced acoustic performance
Wasserturm

Collaboration with Martina Stock, Christian Schratt and This.Play
a.k.a Antoni Rayzhekov & Emanuel Andel

Watertower in Vienna - Austria

People Move People

collaboration with Martina Stock
2013 | Participatory Audiovisual Installation
People Move People

Collaboration with Martina Stock presented at "Lange Nacht der Museen" 2013
Stadtgalerie Salzburg - Austria

Quantum Picture III

2013 | Participatory Audiovisual Installation
Quantum Picture III feat. Sara De Santis

Showcase of Fascinate Conference 2013 - Falmouth - UK
Open rehearsal with Sara de Santis

Quantum Picture II

2013 | Participatory Audiovisual Installation
Quantum Picture II

Trasformatorio Zero
Montalbano Castle, Sicily - Italy

Quantum Picture I

2012 | Participatory Audiovisual Installation
Quantum Picture I

Quantum Picture series is a performative audio-visual installation sensitive to movement. An image is being constantly processed based on the viewer's movement by using computer vision and image analysis. The process is irreversible, the original is lost and one can see only fragments of the initial image and sounds remained from the last visitor. The quantum state of the installation is being altered in the process of observation. The project is inspired by the principals of quantum mechanics and quantum measurement.

Q202, Vienna - Austria

ECOSMOSIS

2012 | Audio-visual interactive environment
collaboration with M. Benayoun / L. Stergiou / E. Andel
ECOSMOSIS

By Maurice Benayoun in cooperation with This.Play a.k.a Antoni Rayzhekov and Emanuel Andel, curated by Lina Stergiou at Hellenic Cosmos Cultural Center 2012 in Athens - Greece

Photo by Maurice Benayoun

Virtual Insanity

2011/2012 | Visual-active dance theatre
Flowmotion Dance Company / M. Zeplichal / A. Rayzhekov / E. Andel
Virtual Insanity

A project by Flowmotion Dance Company, generative animation by Martin Zeplichal, motion tracking by This.Play a.k.a Antoni Rayzhekov and Emanuel Andel

DSCHUNGEL theater 2011/2012 in Vienna - Austria

HYPERCUBE v0.1a

2012 | Re-Active Audiovisual Performance
HYPERCUBE

Experiment with interactive visualisations, motion tracking and generative sound with This.Play a.k.a Antoni Rayzhekov & Emanuel Andel, Mathias Husinsky and Andreas 'Muk' Haider

Schmiede "Zero"

Hallein - Austria

RETURN

based on Harold Pinter's texts, director Antoni Rayzhekov
2009 | Site-specific stream-theatre performance
RETURN

Site-spacific stream-theater performance based on Harold Pinter's texts with Bilyana Kazakova, Peter Peykov and Janet Yovcheva at A:part:mental 2009 in Sofia, Bulgaria

Photo by Yovko Lambrev

KRAPP

based on Samuel Beckett's "Krapp's last tape"
2008 - 2009 | Theater performance
KRAPP

KRAPP is a theatre performance based on Samuel Beckett's text "KRAPP`s last tape" monodrama with Naum Shopov
staging: Naum Shopov
director and music: Antoni Rayzhekov
stage design:Elena Ivanova
voices: Valentin Ganev, Hristo Cheshmedjiev

The National Theater "Ivan Vazov", Sofia - Bulgaria

NIGHTSONGS

by Jon Fosse, director Peter Stoyschev
2005 - 2006 | Site-specific Theater Performance
NIGHTSONGS

Site specific theater performance based on Jon Fosse's play.
Director Peter Stoyschev, with Vesela Kazakova, Antoni Rayzhekov and Bojidar Popchev
Music by Antoni Rayzhekov and Vesela Kazakova

Hambara 2005/2006 in Sofia, Bulgaria

Photo by Yovko Lambrev / Rumen Vassilev