ALESSANDRO BOSETTI: MASK/MIRROR:: January 26, 2009; 7:00 pm :: Harvestworks Digital Media Arts Center :: 596 Broadway #602, New York City.

Mask/Mirror (M/M) is a sampler-based software tool created using Max/MSP that processes recordings of spoken language in real time. In performance, the composer uses samples of his own voice to create an ambiguous situation of being interrupted by himself all the time and of having to resort to all possible resources to keep making sense. The sampler follows both sound and meaning criteria in sorting, organizing and processing samples and formulating utterances.

Bosetti has performed more than 40 shows with M/M in Europe and the United States. Performances often build up to collective and interactive events where the audience gets actively engaged. This instrument has also been featured on radio shows, like a phone-in performance for Kunstradio.at and a live interview on WMFU. Bosetti also plans to explore the therapeutic use of this instrument with people with speech disorders like aphasia.

M/M has been made possible by taking immersive Max/MSP certification classes at Harvestworks Digital Media Arts Center in NYC with interactive media artist/instructor Matthew Ostrowski. Additional work was done in collaboration with STEIM in Amsterdam.

Allesandro Bosetti was born in Milan, Italy in 1973. A composer and sound artist, he works on the musicality of spoken words and unusual aspects of spoken communication. He has produced text-sound compositions featured in live performances, radio broadcastings and published recordings. His work straddles the line between sound anthropology and composition, often including translation and misunderstanding in the creative process. Field research and interviews often build the basis for his abstract compositions along with electro-acoustic and acoustic collages, relational strategies, trained and untrained instrumental practices, vocal explorations and digital manipulations. Since he’s curious about differences, he travels. Since 2006 he has lived and worked in West Africa, China, Taiwan, Holland, Scandinavia, United States, Germany and Italy. Presently he is working and living between Berlin (D), Milano (I) and Baltimore (USA).