ffairytones modul

2025, Tangible Music Lab

ffairytones modul is a modular system for live performance created in collaboration with Tangible music lab in Linz. It is an artistic research in the form of a novel musical instrument on the topic of porcelain acoustics and digital processing. I have continued on the research since Oddenky/Rrhizzzomess project. It extends thoughts about connection and fluidity of ideas, as somtehing not belonging to single individual, but shared unconsciousness.

The shapes are embracing material thinness. By inaccuracies and deviations I let the space of the material lead me and thus reveal its personality to the core. This critical nakedness leads, in my narrative, to a break from the hollow certainties of abundance and lived consumer reality. Acoustic bodies of the shapes are revealed by several oscilators and the instrument is bringing shimmering, untuned chords which are overlapping across the ambience. Complex shapes merge the magical, binary and physical.

The holes are reminiscent to the construction of acoustic musical instruments. The elaborate craft with more-than-physical laws. I have experienced complex and moody behaviour both of the matter and the technologies through following the process of coding by Tamlab member Ulla Reuter. In those moments the structure and rules do not seems logical and rational anymore. It seems like mastering a skill goes through so many places of disappointment and misunderstanding, that once you become the master, you´ve trained your intuition into kind of another sense. This extra sensitivness is particularly interesting for me, trying to catch a glimpse, describe a uncertain feeling of getting closer to it.

In the instrument design process I´ve analyze the spectral specifications of shapes into an acoustic library of forms. The data was analysed using Sonic Visualiser and Praat software. There are intersting harmonics, a list of resonant frequencies and a transcription into notes (european tuning).

The Tangible lab team provided me with hardware and coded software for a wireless modular system. We tested a set-up consisting of 1 sender arduino modul + multiple wireless receivers. It is a swarm of ESP synths controlled by MIDI / PD Serial Data and synced by ESPnow protocol. ESP-Swarm-Synth is a distributed synthesizer system that leverages multiple ESP32 devices to create a synchronized swarm of sound generators using the Mozzi audio library. The system is controlled via MIDI or Pure Data (PD) serial data and uses the ESP-NOW protocol for synchronization across devices. Thanks to the policies of Tangible lab, it is open source software available here via GitHub.

/porcelain, transducer, ESP-swarm-synth/

The instrument is still being developed and it will be performed by myself and sorbitoldrops in Sanatorium Sonorum festival in Czechia. The project was funded by the European union and the Goethe institut.

mankalustigova@gmail.com