SLOWLY FADING INTO DATA

by Albert.DATA

ABSTRACT ‘Slowly Fading into Data’ is a speculative audiovisual project expressed in multiple artistic formats: a Retro- Game & Arcade Installation, a Debut Music Album, a Live A/V Performance, and a Short Film. These audiovisual experiences are the results from Albert.DATA’s artistic research on disembodiment, extended cognition, hybrid beings, and synthetic identities. The artist and researcher presents an avant-garde, ambient, and contemplative story of a human, slowly mutating into data: A transformative journey about non-human forms, the boundaries and extensions of experience, existence, and identity. The creation of new audiovisual instruments to interpret the last human reverberations. A step forward for the disintegration of the self. OVERVIEW The Retro-Game & Arcade Installation is based on a narrative-driven, interactive-storytelling, action-adventure experience. The project’s goal is to challenge standard audiovisual production methods by combining "low-tech" (8-bit retro console) with "high-tech" (AI and procedural sound design) using game engine technologies. In specific, the experience presents 8-bit artistic game assets designed and produced using AI techniques; and it also features 8-bit procedural music and sound design that experiments with and exploits the sound hardware of this iconic family of consoles. The debut Music Album is a conceptual sonic project that delves into the past to peer into the future. Using research on 8-bit music and neural audio synthesis, Albert.DATA proposes an avant-garde ambient, and ominous experience that bends the perception of time. The creation of new digital instruments to interpret the last human reverberations. A memory trip based on contemplation and ecstasy. The Live A/V Performance (45 minutes) is an experimental audiovisual show that invites us into an ambient, ethereal, abstract and contemplative story of a human, slowly mutating into data: A transformative journey about the meaning of transfiguring into a non-human form, the boundaries and extensions of experience, existence and identity. The performance aims to challenge standard audiovisual production methods by combining, in real-time, "low-tech" (an 8-bit retro console) with "high-tech" (AI and procedural sound design) implementing 8-bit sound technologies with neural audio synthesis in real-time. The Short Film is an experimental cinematography project that aims at merging all the other expressions of the ‘Slowly Fading into Data’ project into one single audiovisual experience. It consists of 6 different short pieces that combine scenes from the live a/v performance and fictional material. The goal is to challenge the canonical audiovisual production methods by combining retro formats (8mm Film) with state-of-the-art cinema technology (Virtual Production and Artificial Intelligence).