Frank Ekeberg
Meta.Morf 2024 – [up]Loaded Bodies / Vitensenteret i Trondheim / Concert August 11 @ 20:00. Ticket (TBA)
humana|machina (2024)
World premiere!
humana|machina is an immersive electroacoustic music composition that invites you into a sonic realm where the boundaries of human and machine dissolve. It takes as its starting point the desire to extend human senses and capabilities by means of technology. The piece is composed of sounds that are both organic and mechanical, sounds of machines and technology juxtaposed with the sounds of nature and the human voice. The title itself, a fusion of the Latin terms for ‘human’ and ‘machine,’ becomes a symbolic canvas upon which the narrative of our modern existence unfolds. The composition serves as an exploration of the intricate interplay between the organic and the synthetic, a journey into the evolving relationship that defines our era. “humana|machina” is an abstraction, a reflection, and an invitation. It is a sonic bridge connecting the ancient with the futuristic, the human with the machinic. A loose narrative serves as a guide through the auditory landscapes that echo the complexities of our interconnected world, where boundaries blur, and the essence of human and machine is laid bare.
Text contributions by Chat GPT, Bard, and Bing AI; voices by Coqui XTTS.
humana|machina was commissioned by Meta.Morf 2024 with generous support from the Norwegian Cultural Fund.
Frank Ekeberg (NO) is a transdisciplinary artist, music composer and researcher working in the intersection of the natural and the constructed. His work explores issues of ecology, time, spatiality, and radical change, with a particular focus on nature spaces, technopolitics, and the interplay between human and non-human worlds. Primarily working with sound using obsolete as well as emerging technologies, Ekeberg’s artistic output includes generative installation art, immersive electroacoustic music, photography, and interactive audio-visual creations. Site-specificity and integration of spatial elements in the compositional structure are at the core of most of his projects. Ekeberg’s works have been widely presented in venues around the world, including Chicharra Festival (Spain), Acousma (France), International Symposium on Electronic Art (Australia, Dubai, Canada, Spain), Saemien Sijte (Norway), New York City Electroacoustic Music Festival (USA), Fotografie Forum Frankfurt (Germany), International Computer Music Conference (Cuba, Sweden, Singapore, USA) Carlow Art Collection (Ireland), Kiasma Museum of Contemporary Art (Finland), CMMAS (Mexico), Seoul International Computer Music Festival (Korea), Inner Space (Croatia), Fronteras del Silencio (Argentina), Felleshus (Berlin), ASU Art Museum (USA), and many more. He was awarded the Smithsonian Artist-Research Fellowship in 2017, and is currently the recipient of the Norwegian Government Grant for Artists.
Frank Ekeberg holds a master’s degree in electronic music from Mills College in Oakland, California, where he studied composition with Pauline Oliveros and Alvin Curran, and a Ph.D. in electroacoustic music from City University London, UK, supervised by Denis Smalley. Ekeberg spends most of his time living and working in Trondheim, Norway.
Header graphics by DALL-E / Portrait photo: Luz María Sánchez.