SARS-COV-2: Sound Analogies and Radical Sonification

Open call for artists

SARS-COV-2 | Sound Analogies and Radical Sonification: Curatorial Ontology and the Viral Sonic Dissemination in the Trembling Pandemic Forces

Extended Deadline: October 31st of 2020

Free application

Selection: up to 37 artists

Results publication: january 2021

We invite European artists to think about the current context and how it can be leveraged through creative processes (sound and music). It is intended to an understanding and reflection on sound in a more expansive field, between the social and the aesthetic, in the domain of a creation process shared between authors, institutions, historical conditions, and the European territory.

EMERGE – Cultural Association and IVS: Institute of Viral Sonology has joined to enhance the construction of a collective sound installation that contextualizes this unique moment that we are experiencing. Building the conditions for the encounter and production of a sound installation that allows us to reflect that, even in the face of adversity, artists and culture are a hope and dynamic design capable of conceptualizing, and creating ideas and aesthetic formulations and forms that bring together collective discourses in the European territory.

Open to artists living and working in the European territory. We value applicants from groups that face discrimination based on race, ethnicity, background (Cultural), people with disabilities or members of the LGBTQ + community.

Musical or sound areas admitted:
Abstract; Acousmatic; Art & Technology; Avant-garde; Classical; Electroacoustics; Experimental; Generative sound; Soundart; Sound design; New media; Noise; Visual music.

Artists must develop a sound or musical composition up to 2 minutes maximum using the MIDI files available here for download. Applicants must choose the material that best suits their ideas and deliver the sound file in WAV format hosted on an independent server (dropbox, Mega.NZ, Sync.com, Google Drive, upCloud, Tresorit, Box, OneDrive, Amazon Drive, SpiderOak, IDrive).

Accepted formats must follow the configuration presented:
WAVE HQ (24 bit / 96 kHz. 16 bit / 48 kHz. Sample rates from range: 48000Hz.

In addition to biography with 700 characters (spaces included), artists should send the artwork synopsis including a reflection on the processe, methodology and technique used, not exceeding 500 characters (spaces included).

The material received will then be transformed into a collective sound piece to present as an installation for multichannel, quadrophonic, with spatialized sound. The installation will be created by the intermedia and sound artist Hugo Paquete and the curator Jorge Reis.

The artwork will be displayed in our programming partners venue. The selected works will also result in a digital and printed album that will then be sold. The amount raised from the sales and streamings will be donated to European institutions and organizations that are researching or developing drugs or vaccine to combat coronavirus.

The application will be evaluated by the organization members and invited experts. We will select up to 37 compositions or sounds.

The conversion of the files to MIDI was developed by Hugo Paquete. It was divided into three variations for each part of the SARS-CoV-2 virus RNA: COVID-19. These divisions are translated into three MIDI files for each sequence corresponding to the DNA, proteins, and the junction of the two.

The strings are as follows:

A String of RNA
Cellular Saboteur · NSP1
Mystery Protein · NSP2
Untagging and Cutting · NSP3
Bubble Maker · NSP4
Protein Scissors · NSP5
Bubble Factory · NSP6
Copy Assistants · NSP7 and NSP8
At the Heart of the Cell · NSP9
Genetic Camouflage · NSP10
Copy Machine · NSP12
Unwinding RNA · NSP13
Viral Proofreader · NSP14
Cleaning Up · NSP15
More Camouflage · NSP16
Spike Protein · S
Escape Artist · ORF3a
Envelope Protein · E
Membrane Protein · M
Signal Blocker · ORF6
Virus Liberator · ORF7a
Mystery Protein · ORF8
Nucleocapsid Protein · N
Mystery Protein · ORF10