tacticsoffading tacticsofdisappearing nodigitaltrace theoryofchaos digitalbody blackmidi hyperfragmentedreality entropicreality entropy datasiloing limitedpolyphony notehanging vaporwave alexandergalloway hyperthrophy heritage standardization infinitemusic notetexturing movementcapture
SHOEG (ES)
THE SWARM
27’50”
DIGITAL RELEASE
CATALOG: 9ED002
RELEASED MAY 31, 2018
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DESIGN: MOTE STUDIO
Created using tactics of fading/disappearing, Catalan sound and visual artist Carlos Martorell’s Shoeg presents its first album on 901 Editions, and disconnects from data servers which collect our own data offering zero transparency, thus resulting in not leaving digital traces of his action. The Swarm revolves around the idea of appropriation, generating data through a couple of movement sensors applied to the artist’s body and used to create sounds. Incorporating unorthodox ideas from black midi into the sound, the album draws inspiration from Adam Harper’s Infinite Music and Alexander Galloway’s Protocol books, finding its roots in the theory of Internet as a chaotic and uncontrollable organism.
The music is dramatic, subtle yet powerful, with its wide dynamic range. Large numbers of notes are layered in close proximity to one another, and the sound’s soul unfolds itself as its tension goes, expanding in various unpredictable movements, sometimes warped with timbral changes in motion, other times on the verge of vanishing, revealing Shoeg’s interest in privacy and concern about being trapped in contemporary forms of control of big platforms.
“The fact that our body is constantly traced and measured is nothing new at this point. In this society we need obfuscation techniques and strategies for camouflaging and fading ourselves into the background, so we retain control of our bodies. Some of these tactics involve chaos and voids, low res behaviours or keeping awareness of our traces. The Swarm is a collection of sound sketches based on emotional data collected in a silo by my own body and by my own will”. —Carlos Martorell
I'm Carlos Martorell, a sound and visual artist and media technician. I was trained a few years in classical formation and piano, but as a youngster I developed interest in experimental and electronic music languages. I also have a background in TV and radio.
My main interest is the symbiotic relationship between humans and technology, and experimentation with technology as a tool to manage perception of reality and also as a political background.
I'm fascinated by body movement translated into other realities as I believe in the powerful relationship between movement/image and sound. I develop my own tools and repurpose technology to create sound.
Other topics I'm interested in include human communication and privacy.
I'm performing as Shoeg, my visual and sound solo project. I've released three albums and a few EPs: Panorama (Boira Discos, 2014), Tanz (Boira Discos, 2015), .nfo (Boira Discos, 2015) and Vaseline (Memory No. 36 Recordings, 2017).
I've developed my own virtual worlds with 3D scanning and Unity, either as part of my live sets or as independent installations.
I'm also one half of Ensemble Topogràfic, a collective settled in Barcelona building up their pieces intertwining movement and sound. This project allowed me to work and experiment with devices enabling movement to interact with sound in live sets. As Ensemble Topogràfic we also have released sound albums of our performances: Ensemble Topogràfic (Cydonia/Boira Discos, 2014) and Llac (Memory No. 36 Recordings, 2017), revolving around naive use of our online avatar.
I've also worked as a composer for dance companies: Rèplica (Laia Santanach, 2017 - with Toni Costa, as MTM) LO.LI.TA and El Octavo Día (La Taimada, 2016) and Spam (Núria Guiu, 2015).