Concept

A sonification of the 'Parasites Feast' from the fables of La Fontaine, pointed through the filter of French philosopher Michel Serres. In this world 'Noise' is recognised as the creative force that alters the situation irrevocably and for good, the system adapting, evolving and integrating this new information. This position is diametrically opposed to Claude Shannon’s ‘Theory of Communication’ where noise or 'static' is unwanted interference on the channel between sender and receiver disturbing the purity of the message. In Serres’ model a bifurcating fork replaces the linear model of communication allowing for the possibility of change at any given point. This degree of uncertainty and potential for spontaneous interaction is an integral ingredient in the performance of 'Requiem 4 DeadMedia', integrating notions of new media's untimely demise into dead media. This parasites feast is a feast of dead media, old cables and wires coated with a gelatine substance addictive to rodents. a ‘sea’ of old mobile phones, answering machines, dictation devices, tape recorders, power adaptors and detuned, discordant keyboards. As the rats move around their ‘mis en scene’ gnawing and munching with their powerful incisors, they create a meta-text to the background noise of musical instruments triggered by their investigations.

"The bit of noise, the small random element, transforms one system or one order into another. —Michel Serres, The Parasite