Hugo Paquete, PhD - Sonic Media Artist & Researcher

Hugo Paquete, PhD, is a sonic media artist, composer, and researcher whose practice merges sound, computation, and critical theory to interrogate the infrastructures shaping contemporary life. Working across Critical Sound Studies, post‑digital performance, and computational creativity, he reimagines sound as a medium of philosophical inquiry, algorithmic critique, and post‑human speculation. His work composes with systems, not merely sounds, exposing the hidden architectures of technology, control, and machinic agency.

Central to his methodology is the integration of computer science into artistic practice. Paquete develops multi‑agent systems, unsupervised AI models, anomaly‑detection pipelines, and stochastic algorithms that operate as co‑creative agents within sonic ecologies. Concepts such as micro‑sound and maximum sound are articulated through algorithmic sabotage: the hacking and repurposing of natural and technological forces, biometric data, satellite telemetry, electromagnetic fields, and generative computational processes. By embracing glitch, entropy, and systemic collapse, he reframes technological failure as a compositional resource, transforming breakdown into vibrational knowledge and cultivating new modes of perception.

His performances and installations unfold within a post‑techno computational aesthetic, where rhythmic residues, machinic noise, and infrastructural signals are sculpted into speculative sonic architectures. These works manifest as cybernetic ecologies, in which human performers, stochastic algorithms, and real‑time data systems intra‑act. They are not representations but operational systems — dynamic territories where agency is distributed, listening becomes survival, and sound functions as a form of cultural and algorithmic resistance.

Paquete positions the artist as both sonic theorist and computational system builder, mediating complex relations between humans, machines, and environments. His practice offers a vital listening framework for a world saturated with invisible technologies, proposing sound as both a forensic tool and a speculative force for rethinking perception, agency, and the technological unconscious.

Major Works

Major works include Negentropy: The Last Man in the Wasteland (2024), which sonifies CO₂ data through fragmented deepfake vocals; Unevenness (2015), a 24-channel composition carried aboard NASA's OSIRIS-REx mission; Zoe: Actant (2017), exploring biological and algorithmic vitality; Obscure Radiation (2018–2019), combining electromagnetic frequencies and luminous data with support from the Gulbenkian Foundation; and Orbital Eccentricity (2020–2021), developed at ZKM | Hertz-Lab with European i-Portunus, which sonifies real-time satellite data.

Over the past two decades, Paquete has established an internationally recognized career, with more than 40 works presented in over 15 countries at major institutions and festivals including Ars Electronica (Austria), ZKM | Center for Art and Media (Germany), Museum of Arts and Design (New York), Sweet Thunder Festival (USA), IN-SONORA (Madrid), PNEM Sound Art Festival (Netherlands), Audiorama 4 (Stockholm), SoundGate: Utzon Centre and Platform4 (Denmark), Sonic Vigil V (Ireland), Festival Música Viva (Lisbon), IMEB Bourges (France), Zeppelin Festival (Barcelona), DAW Festival (Zurich), FILE Festival (São Paulo) and others.

His projects have been supported by cultural and research institutions including the Portuguese Foundation for Science and Technology (FCT), Calouste Gulbenkian Foundation, Creative Europe / CreArt, DGArtes, European i-Portunus, and the Leonardo da Vinci program. He also collaborated with Lithuanian artist Julijonas Urbonas on Talking Doors (2010), awarded a Prix Ars Electronica Distinction, a Japan Media Arts Festival Jury Recommendation, and an Honorable Mention at Live 2011 Grand Prix (Turku, Finland).

Education & Research

Paquete holds a PhD in Digital Media Art (2022), funded by FCT, which he completed with louvor e distinção (highest honors). His doctoral thesis, Imanências Espectrais: Reflexão sobre o Pós-Digital nas Artes Sonoras (Spectral Immanences: Reflection on the Post-Digital in Sound Arts), theorizes an emergent diegesis of post-digital sonic event immanence and the subcultural resistances formed at the intersections of art, technology, capital, and sonic politics—establishing critical foundations for his practice.

He completed the curricular component of a PhD in Musical Sciences at the New University of Lisbon (2017) and holds a Master's degree in Contemporary Artistic Creation from the University of Aveiro (2014), where he defended the dissertation Entropia Disfuncional: noise, glitch e caos nas artes sonoras (Dysfunctional Entropy: Noise, Glitch, and Chaos in Sound Arts). This research explored noise and glitch as autonomous media within sound arts, drawing on art–science methodologies, avant-garde traditions, and post-digital aesthetics to demonstrate how concepts such as chaos, entropy, and indeterminism open new artistic paradigms at the intersections of art, technology, and philosophy. He also earned a degree in Fine Arts and New Media from the School of Arts and Design in Caldas da Rainha, Portugal (2011).

Formal academic credentials: CNAEF 211 · 213 · 219 · 481 — Fine Arts, Audiovisual & Media Production, Digital Arts, and Computer Sciences.

Current Work

Hugo Paquete is a CEEC-FCT Research Fellow at INET-md — Institute of Ethnomusicology, Centre for Studies in Music and Dance, University of Aveiro, where he leads the research project AI as Catalyst: Transformative Impacts on Digital Performance, Computer Music, and Cultural Creativity (2026–2029).

He is also the founder and director of Absonus Lab, a laboratory for the creation of acousmatic music, sound, and digital media art, integrated into the Anna Lindh Foundation and the European Media Art Platform (EMAP). He is a research collaborator at CIAC — Research Centre for Arts and Communication and iAlab Sensoria (UBI).

Through his practice, Paquete turns sound into an instrument of critique and speculation, repurposing technology, weaponizing noise, and forging new modes of listening that resonate from the subatomic to the planetary scale. His current research investigates artificial intelligence as a creative co-agent, developing the concept of the AI-Chimera through practice-based methodologies, custom software, and live performance.

I do not compose sounds—I compose cybernetic ecologies.
                        I do not seek harmony—I seek the resonant frequencies of rupture.
                        I do not document reality—I weaponize instability to destabilize its capture.

In the noise of collapse, we encounter the signal of the real.
                        In the resonance of entanglement, we glimpse fugitive futures.
                        Through sonic intra-action, we inhabit, resist, and regenerate worlds.


Field Manifesto