Live patching from void to video

Abstract

This essay describes an artistic and academic investigation that has emerged from a frustration with a life dominated by screens and digital media. Adopting a post-digital perspective, I use the consequences of digitalisation for culture, knowledge and human judgement as a backdrop for a form of resistance and to develop an artistic practice centred on modular synthesizers, audiovisual composition and live improvisation, with a particular focus on live patching from void – a method in which a reset modular system without any pre-connections is used as the starting point for each performance. This practice emphasises risk, presence and unpredictability over reproduction and control. The essay argues that practice, embodied knowledge and aesthetic reflection can create space for human judgement in an increasingly algorithmic contemporary world. What began as doubt, psychological dissonance and shame at the dominance of screens has evolved into a post-digital artistic practice grounded in materiality, an evolving aesthetic sensibility and lived experience.