Sound body, body sound

By Drew Malzahn

This past Monday, self-described ‘sonic artist’ Marco Donnarumma demonstrated a new kind of musical instrument for the Stevens Visual Art and Technology Program, which he calls the ‘Xth Sense’.

The presentation began with Donnarumma explaining in a low voice that it was absolutely imperative that the audience hear the Xth Sense (pronounced ‘ecsth sense’), so that they understand the emotion of his work. There was an eerie calmness in the room as he strapped small black boxes to his forearms; there was something medical about the way the wires hung off of his body, standing out against the plain white walls. Donnarumma closed his eyes and brought his palms together in front of his chest in a zen-like pose. Suddenly, the silence was broken as he began to violently shake his arms in small, rapid movements, and a low, thunderous boom rolled from the speakers. As Donnarumma’s spasms increased in intensity and range, the sound shaped itself into squeaks, pops, low booms, and screeches akin to something like feedback from an electric guitar. The experience was entirely alien and a little uncomfortable; the music was interesting to hear but unpleasant to listen to for too long. After Donnarumma was finished, the room burst into applause and cheers.

Donnarumma then began a presentation explaining some of the technical aspects of the device and his motivations for developing it. The Xth Sense is a biomedical sensor that captures the sound of muscle tissues contracting, known as mechanomyogram. He creates entirely for the purpose of creation, he said, the journey being infinitely more important than the destination. He stressed very carefully that he was “a performance artist, not a technology guy”, and that his research had no final goal except to create questions. He then showed the audience an excerpt from one of his pieces titled ‘Hypo Chrysos’, inspired by the sixth Bolgia of Dante’s Inferno, where hypocrites were doomed to walk for eternity carrying heavy lead. In the piece, Donnarumma drags two 50kg blocks for twenty minutes, while the Xth Sense captures the sounds of his screaming muscles and turns them into an audio-visual display meant to “transmit the sensory alteration to the audience”.

The Xth Sense is an open source project; the software is available online, and the device can be built for a couple of dollars with easily acquirable parts. The project has users and contributors from around the world. You can read more about the Xth Sense and other projects by Donnarumma at his website, marcodonnarumma.com .