2.10.2020. Performance @Not LESS_MATERIAL, La Cocina, PuntWG Amsterdam
As part of the A Matter of (In)digestions festival
Used in the performance: RGB sequence from a 29×18-pixel version of the image Astronomers-View-the-Effect-of-Gravitational-Lensing-on-the-Cosmic-Microwave-Background.jpg*
duration: 40 min
video by Vika Mitrichenko
In Drum-n-Pix, a computer reads a randomly chosen image, scaled down and converted into a stream of RGB values. Each pixel’s red, green, and blue components are vocalized one after the other as percentages – “Red 10%, Green 23%, Blue 40%,” and so on – while the corresponding color fills the background projection behind the performer. This continues until every pixel in the image has been read aloud. Simultaneously, the artist performs live drumming, delivering raw, repetitive rhythms that intertwine with the machine’s voice.
The raw data spoken aloud in the performance sounds almost meaningless – a cascade of isolated color values. Yet these numbers contain all the rich visual information we normally perceive instantly as coherent images. Essentially, both the human brain and artificial intelligence follow a similar path: mixing three primary colors into tiny dots, stitching those dots into patterns, and ultimately forming recognizable concepts and complex meanings – like facial expressions, warning signals, or whatever else… recognizable to us. What do machines see – who knows?
It takes us just a tiny fraction of a second to decode millions of color signals. Drum-n-Pix, however, deliberately slows this process down into a performance lasting over 40 minutes, exposing the lowest level of visual perception and linking it to a primal sonic experience. It reveals the hidden computational labor behind vision by coupling the monotonous recitation of color data with equally raw, repetitive drumming. The result is an audiovisual experience that oscillates between hypnotic trance and outright annoyance – depending on the listener’s state of mind or the tolerance of nearby neighbors forced to endure relentless beats and the machine’s seemingly meaningless mumbling.
Through this collision of primitive rhythm and computational logic, Drum-n-Pix offers a glimpse into the mechanics of perception, questioning what meaning truly is and how it emerges from streams of raw data—whether in human minds or in artificial systems poised to surpass us.