Chris Jankas TOTALLY MECHANIZED MIDI ORCHESTRA Fluc & Fluc Wanne, 02 Sep 20

The Totally Mechanized MIDI Orchestra is an orchestra of approximately 100 'musicians'. Made of engines, relays, electromagnets and pneumatic components it can interpret any midi file in its own unique way.

The instruments are not conventional instruments used by robots, but sound generators who are aware of their mechanical origin and use this awareness as inspiration for tone generation.

MIDI stands for 'musical instrument digital interface'. This digital protocol for music programming was developed in the early 1980s. Today, the majority of popular and electronic music (both mainstream and non-mainstream) now use this protocol.

Criticisms of MIDI were that it sounded too mechanical and programmed, and thus, so called 'humanising' algorithms were introduced in order to give the programmed material a certain 'human' inaccuracy.

When the MIDI Orchestra is uploaded midi files, new, unimagined sound worlds are possible. These sounds are then recorded with several small microphones and pick ups to make the midi file supplier happy with a new interpretation of their supplied midi track. The whole project works online on this website: XXXXXX. An individual sends a midi file and gets a high quality, high-resolution audio file back. At the same time, the Midi orchestra can be observed at work during the creating process via built-in webcams. Due to the current situation, the orchestra is not placed in the public space as planned, but in the premises of the Janka.Industries recording studio.

By reproducing purely digitally programmed midi files with analogue inaccurate robots, the midi files' specified precision is humanized in a purely mechanical way - in this case 'mechanized'! In an increasingly digitized world, it has become more and more important to experience haptic moments. The Total Mechanized Midi Orchestra tries to make a masterpiece of digitization, namely MIDI, by making it tangible and perceptible. At the same time, this haptic experience is also brought back into the digital realm and online through the means of microphones and webcams.

https://www.midi-orchestra.net/