in real time
a collection of 454 electronic instruments
commissioned by The Bass Museum of Art
This is the instrument ↑↑ Click + drag on the image to play.
Play the full collection of instruments on The Bass website
The Bass and MyFi Studio partner to create interactive art and music-making experiences by presenting a series of Electronic Music Labs in August-September 2024.
Join live or online for the opportunity to own, play, and create music with MyFi Studio’s newly commissioned electronic music instrument: in real time (2024).
Inspired by artist Nam June Paik’s (b. 1932, Seoul, d. 2006, Miami Beach) early music roots and artwork titled Internet Dweller (1994, on loan from Art Bridges), MyFi Studio created in real time (2024), a collection of custom electronic music instruments available online and in person at the Internet Dweller Electronic Music Labs at The Bass. Made possible with generous support by Art Bridges, guests will learn how to play MyFi Studio instruments, create new media, and have the chance to own an electronic instrument.
Trained as a classical pianist, Paik studied music composition with noted composers and worked with audio electronics before he began incorporating objects, mixing live and prerecorded sounds into his arrangements and subsequent experiments with performance art, as seen in works like TV Cello (2023). Credited with originating the term “electronic superhighway” in 1974, Paik went on to create artwork that positioned digital media as an artistic medium just as social networks expanded globally, making way for the current entanglements between humans and technology. Works like Paik’s Internet Dweller corresponded with the public launch of the World Wide Web.
To further perpetuate the potency of connectivity and collaboration that the internet provides, The Bass commissioned MyFi Studio, a multimedia production studio led by performance duo Aimee Rubensteen and Dr. Josh Eisenberg, to create 404 custom electronic music instruments, offering a new avenue for internet citizens to co-create new work as a collective.
RSVP to Internet Dweller Electronic Music Labs at The Bass here
Video produced by MyFi Studio
Generated by code, written in p5.js and stored on Ethereum (a decentralized blockchain network), MyFi Studio’s new instruments, in real time, play audio and analog glitch visuals in real time. The instruments are shaped by MyFi Studio’s electronic instrument building and improvisational performance practice. The collection of 404 unique samplers is designed to be played on a laptop at home, collaboratively with friends, or during a live performance.
404 instruments will be distributed to the public to own for free. The Bass and MyFi will retain an additional 25 instruments each for ongoing and future use by the public.
In 1963, Paik wrote that “in the most indeterminate music, the composer gives the possibility for the indeterminacy or the freedom of the interpreter, but not to the audience.” To remedy, he “resigned the performance of music” and created musical instruments and exposed them so that the audience “may play them as they please” rendering him “no longer a cook, but only a delicatessen proprietor.” In resonance, The Bass and MyFi Studio’s Internet Dweller Electronic Music Labs invite new audiences to dwell on the internet and use music as a bridge to art making “as they please.”
The in real time collection of instruments can be accessed and experienced on The Bass website beginning July 31, 2024. MyFi Studio will host the live Internet Dweller Electronic Music Labs Sessions onsite at The Bass on August 29, September 5, and September 12. Each live session will feature a special guest contributor such as Gustavo Matamoros + Rene Barge, Archival Feedback, and Smurphio. The instructional Internet Dweller Online Open Studio Sessions will take place August 27, September 3, and September 10 on Twitch.
Keep in touch online @MyFiStudio
RSVP and learn more in The Bass Press Release