Music "weightless" at Sónar

We find ourselves in the middle of a hypothetical future, in which a space technological revolution has taken place that has managed to send humans to live outside planet Earth. How will art and its perception change when we are not restricted by the physical laws imposed on us by planet Earth? It is time to investigate and experiment with its potential cultural implications. This is the starting point ofThe Zero-Gravity Band, a project that asks questions and moves forward in time to talk about music and art in a weightless space."If we eliminate gravity from creative processes, we realize that the way of creating music and art changes totally", explainsMarc Marzenit. He is a producer and composer of electronic music and, together withAlbert Barqué-Durán, cognitive science researcher at City, University of London, has developed this project that will be unveiled at Sónar 2018. Recent research by Dr. Elisa R. Ferrè, professor at the Department of Psychology at Royal Holloway, University of London, on how humans perceive and experience aesthetics in microgravity conditions, has also motivated this project, promoted by the Quo Artis Foundation.

It has been more than half a century since humans reached the moon and spacecraft have also been sent to Mars, but outer space has always been seen as an inhospitable place for life. "One thinks that one cannot survive in a space where there is no gravity, oxygen, or protection from radiation. However, the latest progress is changing that perception and presenting the universe as a place full of corners that can be more or less welcoming," explains Marzenit. The Zero-Gravity Band wants to show them through a 360-degree immersive experience, which will take place at the Sónar electronic music festival and aims to induce sensations of zero gravity through sound. Precisely in the year in which the event celebrates its quarter-century, its more theoretical sibling (Sónar+D) will take a 25-year leap into the future to imagine what artists will be like then. As if we were in 2043, inspired by creativity that defies space and time, they will record music in space, use nanosatellites, and play alongside virtual companions, children of artificial intelligence. Welcome to the "extraterrestrial" musical avant-garde.

"With Albert, we conceived this idea in previous editions of the festival. Albert created a project that showed the creation of an artificial muse through an artificial intelligence neural network. And then we got in touch with Elisa, considered the partner scientific, which gave us the theory for the current project," the music producer from Lleida recalls with a smile. And from there to Bordeaux, where we did a first simulation of a gravity-free flight."One of the things that changes the most is that your body weight and the perceptions you had until now disappear. The same happens with instruments, a piano or a drum kit, they cannot be played as we do on Earth. The way of composing changes a lot because other tools are needed, such as the sensor ring I used on the Bordeaux flight, which allowed me to control and manipulate the sounds I created through a keyboard.", explains Marzenit.

For this reason, they use an instrument created to play in space called Telemetrón. The creator is MIT (Massachusetts Institute of Technology) architect, Nicole L'Huilier, a doctoral student in a group that investigates musical expression beyond the atmosphere. «It is a parallel investigation to the one we are doing with Elisa and it was very interesting to see that we had had similar problems and that we had made errors with the same characteristics. In addition to the results of the predictions of how her instrument, designed for composition and interpretation in the absence of gravity, interacts in those conditions. I myself have designed a prototype, the Savnac, to be able to paint in space,» acknowledges researcher and artist Albert Barqué-Duran.

Artistic expression is another key point of The Zero-Gravity Band project. Barqué-Duran's proposal has been the construction of a prototype baptized with the name S A V N A C, which comes from the word "canvas" spelled backward. This prototype aims to be a classic canvas redesigned in 3D, adapted to be manipulated and perceived in a 360-degree floating environment and that allows the artist to produce an ephemeral work of art in moments of zero gravity. These may seem extravagant approaches, but they are parallel to other initiatives that are increasingly seen as closer, such as tourist space travel or missions to exploit the resources of planets and comets, among others. Everything points to a greater human presence in space in the near future. To advance along this path in the art world, the next step that The Zero-Gravity Band wants to promote is to make another zero-gravity flight with the entire plane to be able to carry out the scientific and artistic tests that are still pending. «In short, continue researching and raising funds to be able to pay the 200,000 euros that an experience of these characteristics costs,» concludes Marzenit. Nobody said that space "gigs" have to be cheap.