Organism + Excitable Chaos begins with an act of dismantling: taking a century-old organ and making it sound from a state of imbalance. The piece brings together Organism —a 1910 Casavant organ prepared robotically— and Excitable Chaos, a robotically guided triple pendulum that activates its aerodynamic thresholds. The result is a kinetic and sonic installation that displaces the instrument from its historical stability and releases a turbulent materiality made up of minimal variations, unstable timbres and unpredictable responses.
There is no closed composition here simply being performed, but rather a living system of movement, air and vibration that constantly reorganises itself. With each oscillation, Excitable Chaos drives the sonic behaviour of the organ, bringing kinetic chaos and acoustic turbulence into dialogue. The piece thus proposes an attentive listening to what deviates, trembles and emerges, opening up a space where sound is not fully controlled, but instead allowed to appear.
Navid Navab
Navid Navab works at the intersection of media alchemy and antidisciplinary composition. His practice, situated between art, science and technology, investigates how machines, matter and sound can generate forms of behaviour that are sensitive, unstable and almost alive. Currently based in Montreal, he develops works that render usually invisible processes perceptible, shifting listening towards material, uncertain and deeply sensorial territories.
His work has been presented at festivals and institutions such as Ars Electronica, KIKK, NEMO, Sonica, ISEA, FIMAV, Rewire, Contemporary Arts Museum Houston and HKW, and moves across installation, kinetic sculpture, performance and artistic research. With a background in contemporary music and electroacoustic composition, and a trajectory that also spans biomedical sonification and art-science research, he has developed international projects, residencies and presentations that expand the relationship between listening, matter and behaviour.