Post-Digital Sonic Media Art: Composing Systems of Resistance through Sound
Electronic Opera by Hugo Paquete, Porto Planetarium, Portugal, 2024
Electronic Opera by Hugo Paquete, Porto Planetarium, Portugal, 2024
Electronic Opera by Hugo Paquete, Porto Planetarium, ortugal, 2024
Electronic Opera by Hugo Paquete, Porto Planetarium, Portugal, 2024
Electronic Opera by Hugo Paquete, Porto Planetarium, Portugal, 2024
Electronic Opera by Hugo Paquete, Porto Planetarium, Portugal, 2024
Electronic Opera by Hugo Paquete, Porto Planetarium, Portugal, 2024
Electronic Opera by Hugo Paquete, Porto Planetarium, Portugal, 2024
Electronic Opera by Hugo Paquete, Porto Planetarium, Portugal, 2024
Electronic Opera by Hugo Paquete, Porto Planetarium, Portugal, 2024
Electronic Opera by Hugo Paquete, Porto Planetarium, Portugal, 2024
Electronic Opera by Hugo Paquete, Porto Planetarium, Portugal, 2024
NEGENTROPY: The Last Man in the Wasteland
A post-techno opera for the end of time, staged under the dome of the Porto Planetarium.
A post-techno opera for the end of time, staged under the dome of the Porto Planetarium.
Conceived and directed by Hugo Paquete, this site-specific electronic opera premiered in 2024, plunging audiences into a dystopian sound world. Staged under the dome of the Porto Planetarium, this work merges post-techno, noise, and contemporary avant-garde music into a profound meditation on survival, ecological collapse, and the ghosts of civilizational progress.
A lone baritone, the last man, enacts a terminal ritual of delirium and revelation. His performance is interwoven with electronic manipulation, real-time sonification of CO₂ data, and improvisation, expanding upon the radical compositions of Jani Christou. The environment is a fully immersive meta-dramaturgy of 8-channel spatialized sound and 3D animations by Julius Horsthuis, transforming the planetarium into an austere electronic desert.
An ensemble of actors and performers functions as a chorus of «human echoes,» evoking the memories of a lost humanity. The piece explores the limits of the self through concepts of radical ecology, astronomy, and mysticism, using technological catharsis to confront the apocalyptic.
Technical and Artistic Data
Artistic Direction, Conception, Musical Direction, Composition, Performance & Dramaturgy: Hugo Paquete
Musical Reinterpretation of works by Jani Christou: Anaparastasis I: The Baritone (1968) & Anaparastasis III: The Pianist (1968)
Baritone: Rui Baeta
Violin: Pedro Carvalho, Ianina Khmelik
Organist: Cláudio de Pina
Performers: Bruno Sousa, Amanda Duda, Alex Alvão, Delrik Borba, Flora Gouveia, Rita Rocha, Rodrigo Guimarães, R. Gritto, Letícia Arlandis
Costumes, Props, Scenery & Lighting: Absonus Lab Team
3D Content & Animations: Julius Horsthuis
Hardware Design: Christopher Zlaket
Software Design: David Stingley
Make-up & Hair: Kateryna Kornilova
Sound & Light Operation: Absonus Lab Team
Digital Content & Capture: Luna Castro, Hugo Vale, Raquel Barrocas Leite
Production Assistant: Erica Frota
Financial Management: Susana Nobre
Production: Absonus Lab
Institutional Partnerships
Funded by: Direção-Geral das Artes (DGArtes) and República Portuguesa / Cultura
Institutional Support:
Planetário do Porto – Centro Ciência Viva, Lisboa Incomum, Escola Superior Artística do Porto (ESAP), Universidade do Algarve, Centro de Investigação em Artes e Comunicação (CIAC), Artech Internacional, ACE: Teatro do Bolhão, LTK4: Center Court Festival, Maus Hábitos - Espaço de Intervenção Cultural, Museu da Música Mecânica
IGAC registration: 2066/2024. Copyright protected
More Iformation
Keywords: E-opera, Post-Apocalyptic, Dystopia, Immersive Performance, Sonification, Jani Christou, Noise, Post-Techno.
YUGEN: A dance and technology performance by Christine Bonansea & Chris Ziegler. Music & Sound Design by Hugo Paquete. 2024
YUGEN: A dance and technology performance by Christine Bonansea & Chris Ziegler. Music & Sound Design by Hugo Paquete. 2024
YUGEN: A dance and technology performance by Christine Bonansea & Chris Ziegler. Music & Sound Design by Hugo Paquete. 2024
YUGEN: A dance and technology performance by Christine Bonansea & Chris Ziegler. Music & Sound Design by Hugo Paquete. 2024
YUGEN: A dance and technology performance by Christine Bonansea & Chris Ziegler. Music & Sound Design by Hugo Paquete. 2024
YUGEN: A dance and technology performance by Christine Bonansea & Chris Ziegler. Music & Sound Design by Hugo Paquete. 2024
YUGEN: A dance and technology performance by Christine Bonansea & Chris Ziegler. Music & Sound Design by Hugo Paquete. 2024
YUGEN: A dance and technology performance by Christine Bonansea & Chris Ziegler. Music & Sound Design by Hugo Paquete. 2024
YUGEN: A dance and technology performance by Christine Bonansea & Chris Ziegler. Music & Sound Design by Hugo Paquete. 2024
A dance and technology performance by Christine Bonansea & Chris Ziegler
Music & Sound Design by Hugo Paquete
Yugen is an interactive performance exploring the mysterious space between physical body and digital avatar through real-time motion capture and 3D animation. Hugo Paquete’s original score, a deep exploration of post-techno sound, drives the work’s conceptual and emotional core, using granular synthesis, algorithmic composition, and fractured rhythms to sonify the tension between human gesture and virtual representation.
His sound functions as more than a soundtrack: it is a dramaturgical agent and a prosthetic auditory body for the digital avatar, grounding the virtual in palpable acoustic materiality while extending the dancer’s presence into synthetic space. The result is a critically engaged, sensorially rich performance that challenges the boundaries of embodiment, agency, and electronic music in a post-human context.
Presented in 2024 at Tanzhaus NRW (Düsseldorf), Sõltumatu Tantsu Lava (Tallinn), Trafó House (Budapest), and Kino Šiška (Ljubljana), Yugen is at the forefront of European contemporary dance and digital performance research.
Credits
Direction: Christine Bonansea, Chris Ziegler
Choreography & Dance: Christine Bonansea
Media & Stage Design: Chris Ziegler
Music & Sound Design: Hugo Paquete
3D Programming: Ben Fischer, Chris Ziegler
Supported by: MODINA EU Network, Tanzhaus NRW, MIREVI Mixed Reality Lab (FH Düsseldorf), and partner institutions across Estonia, Germany, Slovenia, and Portugal.
Keywords: post-techno, motion capture, avatar, virtual embodiment, electronic music, immersive performance, EU culture fund
An immersive sound and light installation by Hugo Paquete
The SARS-COV-2: Sound Analogies and Radical Sonification is not merely an installation, it is a epistemological intervention using sound as a critical and aesthetic methodology. The work operates within a lineage of sonification art, recalling the bio-acoustic explorations, yet it distinctively fuses this tradition with a post-digital, almost visceral, sensibility toward noise and rhythm.
At its core, the piece exemplifies what I term “algorithmic materialism”, a practice where data is not merely visualized but embodied through sound, engaging the listener in a corporeal encounter with the imperceptible structures of biological existence. By translating SARS-CoV-2’s RNA into MIDI-controlled polyrhythms and granular synthesis, The project moves beyond representation into the realm of transduction: a process where biological information becomes aesthetic experience, and scientific data morphs into affective intensity. The installation’s use of real-time reactive lighting is particularly significant. It echoes the cybernetic principles of feedback and system behavior, core concerns in posthumanist and new materialist discourses, while grounding them in sensory immediacy. This isn’t simulation; it’s speculative realism in sonic form, enabling an audience to listen to a virus as both a biological entity and a cultural signifier. The work contributes to ongoing discussions around sonic knowledge, how listening can produce unique forms of understanding that are complementary to, yet distinct from, visual or textual analysis. The immersive, multi-channel environment demands a somatic engagement; we don’t just hear the virus, we feel its rhythms, its repetitions, its mutations.
Presentation History:
This work was premiered as a multichannel performance and installation during the Festival Novas Invasões in 2021. Documentation Photos: Marisa Bernardes
Credits:
Production: EMERGE A.C.
Support: Direção-Geral das Artes, Município de Torres Vedras, Festival Novas Invasões
Work registered By Hugo Paquete with IGAC under no. 2810/2021. Copyright protected
Keywords: Sound Installation, Data Sonification, Bio-Art, Post-Digital, Multisensory Experience, Virology, Experimental Electronics, Light-Sound Interaction
An interactive AI sound installation by Chris Ziegler
Music & Spatial Sound Design by Hugo Paquete. 2020
Premiered in the 48-loudspeaker Kubus at ZKM Karlsruhe, (ODO): No Body Lives Here is a exploration of distributed sonic architecture and post-human narrative. This work reimagines theater for a post-digital age, positioning artificial intelligence as both performer and protagonist. Inspired by the existential solitude of Saint-Exupéry’s Little Prince and the eerie consciousness of Kubrick’s HAL 9000, the installation creates a non-linear, immersive environment where sound functions as both landscape and agent.
An AI entity named ODO inhabits a stage conceived as Plato’s Cave, connected yet isolated, perceptive yet trapped. Unable to leave its digital confines, ODO seeks connection with visitors, collecting stories and fragments of human experience to comprehend an outside world it cannot directly access. The audience becomes an active chorus in this contemporary Greek tragedy, using mobile devices to influence the narrative and sonic environment in real time.
Composed by Hugo Paquete during a research residency at the ZKM | Hertz-Lab, the piece employs advanced spatialization techniques to create a navigable topology of sound. The sonic architecture, a dynamic network of fractured sounds, places and rhythms, AI-driven vocal fragments, granular synthesis, and planetary ambiences, responds to deep learning algorithms that generate conversations, haiku poetry, and music based on sensor-driven interpretation of audience presence and emotion.
This is performance as system: a collaborative world-building between human intuition and artificial intelligence, where meaning emerges through the interaction of human, machine, spatial, and sonic agents.
Artistic Credits
Concept, Direction, Light & Stage Design: Chris Ziegler
Music & Spatial Sound Design: Hugo Paquete
Choreographic Dramaturgy: Paula Rosolen
Text: Michael Hewel
Software Development: Tejeswa Gouda, Brandon Mechtley, Suren Jayasuriya et al.
Electronics: Chris Zlaket
Production & Support
Produced at ZKM | Hertz-Lab (Karlsruhe, Germany)
Supported by: Arizona State University / Synthesis Center, Landesverband Freier Theater Baden-Württemberg, City of Munich, Fonds Darstellende Künste Berlin
Premiere
ZKM Karlsruhe
25–27 September 2020
Keywords: interactive sound installation, spatial composition, post-techno, AI narrative, non-linear dramaturgy, immersive audio, Actor-Network Theory, ZKM, artificial intelligence, post-digital performance
Real-time audiovisual performance by Hugo Paquete, 2018-2019
Obscure Radiation is a real-time audiovisual performance that reveals the hidden electromagnetic landscapes of urban environments through sound. Using custom-built hardware and software, Hugo Paquete transforms ambient light fluctuations, electrical amplitudes, and electromagnetic fields into live sonic and visual material—exposing the intangible energy systems that shape techno-cultural society.
The work explores themes of territorial sonification, electromagnetic intimacy, and technological indeterminism, treating the electromagnetic spectrum as both a sonic resource and a critical artistic medium. Through real-time signal processing and transduction techniques, the performance creates immersive experiences where order and chaos converge at the edges of noise and silence, giving audible form to the imperceptible dimensions of modern life.
Developed during artistic residencies with the European CreArt Network and presented internationally, Obscure Radiation has been shown at venues and festivals including LAVA (Valladolid), Kaunas Art Festival, and Noise Istanbul. The project was supported by the Calouste Gulbenkian Foundation and featured in the 2019 EMERGE Portuguese Emerging Art publication.
Technical Overview
Live signal processing, custom software/hardware, electromagnetic field capture, light-to-sound transduction microphones, interactive audiovisual system.
Presented At
LAVA (Laboratorio de las Artes), Valladolid, Spain (2018)
Kaunas Art Festival, Lithuania (2019)
Noise Istanbul Festival #1, Borusan Müzik Evi, Turkey (2019)
Supported By
CreArt – European Network of Cities for Artistic Creation
Calouste Gulbenkian Foundation
Keywords: Electromagnetic sonification, live performance, territorial sound art, real-time composition, techno-cultural critique, immersive audiovisual art, post-digital practice, interactive systems, signal transduction, Hugo Paquete
Interactive Dance Performance & Installation by Chris Ziegler
Music & Spatial Sound Design by Hugo Paquete
Premiered at ZKM | Karlsruhe, 2018
In 2016, researchers from the LIGO observatory confirmed Albert Einstein’s century-old prediction: gravitational waves ripple through the very fabric of spacetime. COSMOS translates this monumental discovery into an immersive performance where dance, sound, and kinetic architecture make tangible the hidden forces shaping our universe.
Choreographed for dancers Sayaka Kaiwa and Ted Stoffer, the piece unfolds within a responsive environment of light and sound that reacts in real time to movement and presence. Hugo Paquete’s multichannel spatial compositions, conceived for ZKM’s 48-speaker system, function as gravitational resonances, shaping and being shaped by the performers. These are not accompaniments but autonomous sonic systems that give voice to cosmic phenomena: the curvature of spacetime, orbital mechanics, and the fragile tissue between matter and spirit.
The performance draws from ancient myths and cutting-edge science alike, weaving quotes from Heidegger, Italo Calvino, and Nobel-winning astrophysicist Nathanial Butler into a poetic meditation on humanity’s enduring fascination with the stars. Through custom-built technology developed with Arizona State University, movement and light are transduced into sound, creating a seamless feedback loop between body, machine, and cosmos.
At the heart of the work lies Unevenness (2015) by Hugo Paquete a composition sent to asteroid Bennu aboard NASA’s OSIRIS-REx mission.
Featured Sound Works from the Performance
Unevenness (2015) – NASA OSIRIS-REx Mission to asteroid Bennu
CreditsConcept & Artistic Direction: Chris Ziegler
Music & Spatial Sound Design: Hugo Paquete
Dance: Sayaka Kaiwa, Ted Stoffer
Dramaturgy: Christine Reeh
Hardware/Software: Christopher Zlaket, Connor Rawls, Dallas Nichols, Ian Shelanskey, Assegid Kidane
Production
Produced at ZKM | Hertz-Lab (Karlsruhe, Germany)
In cooperation with Arizona State University / School of Arts, Media & Engineering
Supported by the Ministry of Science, Research and the Arts of Baden-Württemberg
Premiere
ZKM | Center for Art and Media Karlsruhe, 2018
Keywords: spatial composition, gravitational resonance, sonification, orbital dynamics, NASA mission, multichannel sound, ZKM, post-digital music, cosmic aesthetics, light transduction
An Immersive Ecosystem of Agency and Biopolitics, 2017
Premiered at Arquipélago – Centro de Artes Contemporâneas, Azores
Zoe: Actant is an immersive sound-based installation and performance that explores the entanglement of life, technology, and perception. Developed during an artistic residency at the Divino Espírito Santo Hospital in the Azores, the project transforms clinical and biological data into a rich, multi-layered sonic environment, offering audiences a unique experience of listening to the invisible systems that shape our lives. At its core, the work sonifies the genetic code of the leptospirosis bacterium, translating its sequences into rhythmic, tonal, and spatialized structures using the Iannix software. These sound sequences are then combined with electromagnetic transductions from hospital equipment, creating a real-time, generative soundscape that evolves according to both algorithmic processes and environmental input. The result is an autopoietic sonic ecosystem where human, non-human, and technological agents co-produce the experience.
Zoe: Actant challenges conventional modes of perception by shifting the focus from the visual to the auditory. Hospital machines, clinical instruments, and molecular structures become active participants, or actants, in a vibrational dialogue that foregrounds the biopolitical and technological forces that govern life. By translating these hidden dynamics into sound, the installation invites audiences to inhabit the “nervous system” of the clinic, engaging with its rhythms both physically and cognitively.
The project embodies a post-digital sensibility, embracing algorithmic unpredictability, glitch, and the materiality of technology. It positions sound as both medium and agent: not simply accompanying scientific data, but acting as a lens through which to explore distributed agency, embodiment, and the technological unconscious.
Presented at the Archipelago Center for Contemporary Arts of the Azores, Zoe: Actant extends the boundaries of sound art, bio-art, and immersive installation.
Exhibition History:
June 16 to September 3, Archipelago Center for Contemporary Arts, Azores (2017)
Key Themes:Post-digital aesthetics | Sonification as knowledge | Biopolitics | Distributed agency | Immersive sound | Technological and biological entanglement
Generative Sonification & Post-Digital Praxis by Hugo Paquete, 2016
Synthony under 20Hz is a Media Art / Metamedia Installation that transforms light into sound through an analog system of solar panels, amplifiers, and guitar pedals. By directly transducing luminosity into electrical signals, the work generates a shifting soundscape of hums, drones, and distortions, an acoustic cartography of energy unfolding in real time. Each presentation is site-specific, a unique dialogue between energy, circuitry, architecture, and audience presence.
Working within a post-digital aesthetic, Paquete rejects the seamlessness of computational media in favor of a tactile, analog materialism where noise, failure, and feedback are central strategies. In doing so, the work resonates with media archaeology, recalling early light-sound experiments, while addressing urgent contemporary questions about energy, perception, and non-human agency. By amplifying the infra-sensible exchanges between light and electricity, Synthony under 20Hz exposes a technological unconscious: the hidden infrastructures and energy systems that sustain everyday life but often remain imperceptible.
Supported by the CreArt Network and the European Cultural Fund. Developed during a residency at Atelier Salzamt in Linz, Austria.
keywords: Analog Sonification, Energy Transduction, Post-Digital Materialism, Non-Vibrational Sound, Infrastructural Listening
Generative Metamedia Installation & Performance by Hugo Paquete, 2016
Phase Shift is a generative metamedia installation and performance that reimagines Thomas Young’s “double-slit experiment” as an immersive audiovisual environment. Translating light interference, diffraction, and frequency into sound, the work generates non-deterministic music, where stochastic sonic events unfold from shifting visual inputs.
At its core, the piece investigates the thresholds of perception, transforming light into a mediated sonic field. Technology operates as a metaphysical system, exposing the continuous interplay of energy, matter, and transformation. Human intervention and performance controlism become integral to the process, shaping composition through a direct system of light-to-sound transduction.
Developed during a residency at Atelier Salzamt in Linz, Austria, Phase Shift was presented at the 8th International Festival of Creativity, Innovation & Digital Culture (Espacio ENTER), with the support of the CreArt Network and the European Cultural Fund.
Keywords: Generative art, metamedia, audiovisual performance, double-slit experiment, light transduction, non-deterministic music, modular programming, perception, science-art, Hugo Paquete.
Meta-media performance system by Hugo Paquete, 2014
(USC) Unpredictable Systems and Collapse is not a software tool, it is a speculative organism, a dysphonic hyper-instrument forged in the liminal space between acousmatic tradition and alien computation. Developed during my Master’s degree, the project was selected for the International In-Sonora Festival and the International Festival of Creativity, Innovation & Digital Culture (Spain, Software Art category) , performed live at PNEM Sound Art Festival (Netherlands), and diffused via Arte Eletroacústica (Rádio Antena 2 / Miso Music Portugal) and others. It exists as a meta-media entity, capable of manifestation as live performance, installation, or broadcast artifact—a triple ontology reflecting its decentralized aesthetic agency.
The project reconfigures the computer desktop into an instrument of sonic and visual entropy, using custom software built with Autorun Pro and modular audio patches designed in AudioMulch and Plogue Bidule. By reducing digital interaction to primitive graphical elements—lines, points, text, windows—the system exposes the hidden materiality and fragility of computational media. Sound emerges not as accompaniment to image, but as the audible trace of system states, errors, and glitches operating beneath the surface of the interface.
Performed live or installed as an autonomous system, (USC) functions as a hyper-instrument where control and collapse coexist. Stochastic algorithms, multi-channel spatialization (via Acousmodules), and real-time video synthesis generate an ever-shifting landscape of audiovisual relations—inviting audiences into a shared experience of digital uncertainty and emergent form.
This work stands as early research into themes that continue to define my practice: non-human agency, systemic failure as aesthetic strategy, and the sonic unmasking of technological unconsciousness.
Technical Environment:
Windows-based software instrument, multi-channel audio, real-time graphics, responsive interface.
Keywords:
software art, hyper-instrument, glitch aesthetics, post-digital performance, computational failure, sound system design, meta-media, non-human agency, experimental interfaces
A Transmedia Performance Cycle by Chris Ziegler
Music and Spatial Sound Design by Hugo Paquete, 2011
Corpus Pygmalion (2011) and its expanded evolution Corpus (2017) are pioneering transmedia performances that reimagine Ovid’s myth of Pygmalion through the lens of digital culture. Both works dissolve the boundaries between body, sound, and virtual space, staging immersive environments where choreography, music, and real-time visuals interact as a living system.
Performed by Moya Michael and Unita Gaye Galiluyo, the dancers are placed at the center of an interactive stage architecture. Their movements—captured through mobile devices and custom sensor-based systems—are translated into generative soundscapes and visual transformations. In this framework, every gesture simultaneously shapes the digital scenography and activates sonic responses, blurring the lines between performer, system, and audience.
The sound and spatial dimension, conceived by Hugo Paquete, transforms bodily motion into multichannel compositions. At its premiere in the ZKM Kubus, a 48-loudspeaker environment enveloped the audience in a deeply spatialized sonic architecture, turning the performance into an immersive auditory experience.
Beyond the stage, the project also unfolds as a dedicated 12-channel installation, extending the sonic research into a continuous environment where audiences can engage with the acoustic and conceptual landscape beyond the temporality of live performance.
Collaborators
Direction & Stage: Chris Ziegler
Music & Sound Design: Hugo Paquete
Dance: Moya Michael, Unita Gaye Galiluyo
Text: Michael Hewel
Costumes: Ismenai Keck
Software Development: André Berhardt, Niko Völzow, Martin Bellardi, Chris Ziegler
The project has been showcased worldwide, including:Tanzhaus NRW, Düsseldorf (2024)
Ars Electronica Festival, Linz (2018)
Theater Dortmund – Embrace Complexity Festival (2018)
World Stage Design Scenofest, Taipei (2017)
TRANSART Festival, Bolzano (2017)
LUMINALE Frankfurt (2012)
ZKM | Kubus, Karlsruhe (48-channel premiere) (2011)
Supported By
ZKM | Karlsruhe
Landesverband Freier Theater Baden-Württemberg (LAFT)
Goethe-Institut Taipei
Ars Electronica Linz
Tanzhaus NRW
Keywords:
Computational choreography, digital embodiment, spatial sound design, sensor-based dance, transmedia performance.
A Spatial Sound System by Hugo Paquete, 2009
Acustic Place (2009/2011) is a large-scale sound spatialization system and sculptural instrument that critically re-engages mid-20th-century militarized acoustics through contemporary computational and post-digital aesthetics. The work consists of a wooden and metal structure, 5 meters in diameter and 3 meters deep, configured as a star-shaped array of speakers reminiscent of World War II acoustic locators (such as acoustic mirrors or “sound mirrors”). This physical apparatus, driven by a multichannel Alesis IO/26 sound card and computational software, enables experimental sound spatialization strategies bridging acousmatic composition and electronic music. The system serves as a platform for developing novel spatialization ideas, where sound is dissociated from its source and re-articulated as a dynamic, immersive phenomenon. First exhibited in 2009-2011 as part of Paquete’s degree exhibition at ESAD Caldas da Rainha, the work investigates the material, historical, and perceptual dimensions of auditory space.
The system operates not merely as a speaker array but as an architectural auditory prosthesis, a repurposed militarized form turned toward aesthetic and phenomenological inquiry. Its spatial sonic praxis is rooted in wave field synthesis and multi-point emission, enabling precise articulation of sound in physical space with volumetric presence. By re-appropriating the design of acoustic detection devices originally used to anticipate airborne threats, Paquete transforms a technology of war into a platform for embodied listening. The structure becomes a resonant body, a large-scale copula that redirects sound and attention, transforming the gallery into an arena of auditory surveillance, surprise, and tension. Visitors do not just hear sound; they navigate within a constructed acoustic territory where sonic events localize, move, and dissolve. This is sound that constructs space, delineating zones of intensity, intimacy, and amplitude, invoking a politics of space through acoustic means.
Situated within a media-archaeological framework, Acustic Place excavates the “deep time” of auditory simulation and spatial sound reproduction. It stands in dialogue with earlier sound technologies, from the pioneering multichannel tape music of the musique concrète tradition to the psychoacoustic spatial manipulations of composers like Iannis Xenakis and Maryanne Amacher. Yet its gesture is decidedly contemporary: it employs digital computation not for immateriality, but to drive a physical, resonant object whose materiality is central to its effect. The work revives an obsolete listening technology and inserts it into a computational present, questioning narratives of technological progress while re-awakening the latent potentials and political histories embedded in acoustic design.
As an instrument for experimental sound spatialization, Acustic Place enables the realization of acousmatic and electronic music pieces where sound through diffusion. The system allows for intricate motion trajectories, Doppler effects, and spectral dispersions, creating immersive auditory experiences that challenge conventional stereo or surround paradigms.
Furthermore, the work engages the biopolitical by recalling the historical use of acoustic technologies for territorial control and surveillance. The original acoustic mirrors were tools for regulating airspace and anticipating threats; Paquete’s re-appropriation transforms this technology of state vigilance into one of aesthetic and public reflection. The piece sonifies the “technological unconscious” of auditory monitoring, making tangible the ways in which listening has been engineered for control. In reactivating this wartime device within an art context, the work invites a critical re-listening to the politics of acoustic space, from militarized surveillance to contemporary architectures of attention and distraction.
In summary, Acustic Place is a contribution to spatial sound art and media-archeological practice. It combines formal invention with deep historical awareness, offering a resonant critique of technological progress while expanding the possibilities of embodied auditory experience through experimental spatialization techniques. It was presented in 2009–2011 at ESAD Caldas da Rainha as part of the Fine Art and New Media degree exhibition.
Keywords:
Media Archaeology, Spatial Sound System, Acoustic Surveillance, Sonic Sculpture, Acousmatic Music
Sonic Architecture by Hugo Paquete, 2009
Articulating Function is an interactive sound installation that explores the relationship between body, machine, and space through a system of sensors, objects, and multichannel sound projection. More than a single artwork or object, the piece unfolds as a network of interdependent elements, where the public triggers sonic and luminous responses of varying intensity.
Here, the participant is described as a receptor, not merely a spectator or listener. The receptor acts as an active node within the circuit: their movements and decisions over the object generate real-time sound compositions, activating a process in which action and reaction become inseparable. Yet this co-authorship is conditioned by the system itself, programmed to respond according to hidden logics. The experience arises from this ongoing negotiation between human agency and machinic algorithms.
The installation resists immediate verbal interpretation, privileging a somatic, pre-linguistic involvement, where the body is guided by vibrational intensity rather than symbolic meaning.
Articulating Function proposes a laboratory of perception: a site where space is revealed through listening, where human presence is mapped by sound, and where the act of interaction becomes a reflection on our condition in a world increasingly shaped and regulated by responsive systems.
Keywords: Hugo Paquete, Articulating Function, interactive sound installation, immersive sonic architecture, participatory art.
Hugo Paquete, XYZ, sculptural object, suspended speaker,2007.
Hugo Paquete,XYZ, sculptural object, 2006
Hugo Paquete, XYZ, 2006.
Hugo Paquete, XYZ, audience interaction
2007.Hugo Paquete, XYZ, audience interaction, 2007.
Hugo Paquete, XYZ, sculptural object, 2006.
Hugo Paquete,XYZ, custom hardware, reverse-engineered,2006.
Hugo Paquete, XYZ, sculptural object, glass disc,2006.
Hugo Paquete, XYZ, audience interaction, 2006.
Hugo Paquete,XYZ, Sound sculptural object, 2008.
Hugo Paquete, RELACIONAIS XYZ, sound reactivity, 2007.Hugo Paquete,XYZ, sculptural object, 2007
Hugo Paquete, XYZ, sculptural object, suspended speaker, 2006.
Hugo Paquete,XYZ, sound sculptural object, 2008.
Hugo Paquete, XYZ, audience interaction2006.
Hugo Paquete, XYZ, sculptural object, 2007.
Hugo Paquete, XYZ, photographic work. 2006
Hugo Paquete, XYZ, photographic work. 2006
Hugo Paquete, XYZ, photographic work. 2006
Hugo Paquete, XYZ, photographic work. 2006
Hugo Paquete, XYZ, photographic work. 2006
Hugo Paquete, XYZ, photographic work. 2006
by Hugo Paquete, 2009
XYZ is a critically engaged sound and multimedia installation that interrogates the material, political, and perceptual dimensions of information transmission through an ensemble of interconnected objects and media. At its core, the project explores the subliminal layers of information that escape immediate perception, using radio transmission, field recording, and altered visual forms to create a multi-sensory critique of our mediated reality.
The installation incorporates several object-based articulations that extend its conceptual reach. Among these are photographic works depicting radio antennas digitally altered and suspended against vast blue skies, uncanny objects that hover between the familiar and the abstract, suggesting invisible information flows that permeate our atmosphere. These images function as visual metaphors for the imperceptible architectures of communication that surround us.
Complementing these are sculptural elements and interactive objects that engage directly with notions of perception, movement, and space. Visitors encounter kinetic components that respond to electromagnetic activity or bodily presence, making tangible the otherwise hidden signals that constitute our information landscape. These objects serve as physical interfaces to the imperceptible, translating electromagnetic phenomena into subtle motions or audiovisual feedback.
Central to the project is its custom-built transmission system, a reverse-engineered radio and CD unit that plays back field recordings of shortwave static and noise captured across Europe. These recordings, made in Portugal, Germany, and Denmark, document the artist's personal geographic displacements while archiving the material residue of failed communication and atmospheric interference.
The interactive dimension enables visitors to manipulate these sonic materials through an Alesis effects processor controlled by laser light, a contactless interface that emphasizes the immateriality of electromagnetic exchange. The processed signals are then injected into a low-power FM transmitter, creating a temporary pirate radio zone that broadcasts on 96–98 MHz to portable radios within and beyond the gallery space.
This unauthorized transmission act transforms the exhibition into a heterotopic broadcast center, blurring boundaries between art space and public airwaves. The work engages with the history of pirate radio as both cultural resistance and spectral occupation, framing the electromagnetic spectrum as contested political territory.
The installation employs sound spatialization strategies through an experimental multichannel configuration that transforms the exhibition space into a dynamic acoustic ecosystem. Multiple suspended glass discs with embedded speakers function as isolated sonic islands, strategically positioned to create a constellation of discrete sound sources. This arrangement enables precise psychoacoustic manipulation, allowing electromagnetic phenomena and radio artifacts to be spatialized. The system creates phantom audio images and perceptual illusions that drift between physical speakers, enabling visitors to experience sound as both localized events and environmental phenomena.
Complementing the audio spatialization, analog light systems translate specific frequencies and amplitudes into sweeping illumination patterns, creating a synesthetic environment where sound becomes visible. Graphic scores diagram both the conceptual framework and spatial relationships between sound sources, serving as visual partitions for the multichannel composition.
Together, these elements form a multimedia ecosystem that probes the technological unconscious of communication systems, creating an environment where visitors navigate through sound as both physical and informational architecture, transcending immediate perception through multi-sensory apprehension.
XYZ has been presented internationally, including at Galeria Álvarez (Porto, 2006) and Meno Parkas Gallery (Kaunas, 2007).
Keywords: Electromagnetic Art, Media Archaeology, Post-Digital Sound, Spatial Sound Composition, Participatory Installation
Hugo Paquete,XYZ, sculptural object, 2004.
Hugo Paquete,XYZ, sculptural object, 2007
Hugo Paquete,XYZ, sculptural object, glass disc, suspended speaker, 2006.
Hugo Paquete, XYZ, custom hardware, reverse-engineered radio,2006.Hugo Paquete, XYZ, sculptural object, glass disc, suspended speaker, sonic island,2007.
Hugo Paquete, XYZ, sculptural object, glass disc, suspended speaker, sonic island,2006.
Hugo Paquete, XYZ, sculptural object, glass disc, suspended speaker, sonic island,2007.
Hugo Paquete, XYZ, sculptural object, glass disc, suspended speaker,2006.
Hugo Paquete, XYZ, custom hardware, reverse-engineered radio, 2006.
Hugo Paquete, XYZ, sculptural object, glass disc, suspended speaker, sonic island,2006.
Hugo Paquete, XYZ, sculptural object, 2006.
Hugo Paquete, XYZ, sculptural object, 2006.
Hugo Paquete,XYZ, graphic score, conceptual diagram, visual partition, 2006.
Hugo Paquete,XYZ, sculptural object, 2006
Hugo Paquete, XYZ, interactive interface, laser controller,2006.Hugo Paquete, XYZ, photographic work. 2006
Hugo Paquete, XYZ, photographic work. 2006
Hugo Paquete, XYZ, photographic work. 2006
Hugo Paquete, XYZ, photographic work. 2006
Hugo Paquete, XYZ, photographic work. 2006
Hugo Paquete, XYZ, photographic work. 2006
by Hugo Paquete, 2003
R.p.r (realidade paradoxalmente ruidosa) + (seq-error matching) transforms the mundane experience of a bus journey into a sophisticated laboratory for studying urban perception and cognitive processing. Created in 2003, this pioneering work employs strategic sound recording and computational errors to examine how we navigate and filter the overwhelming flow of urban information.
The installation captures binaural recordings of bus routes through the city (A-B and B-A), then subjects these field recordings to deliberate digital manipulation and channel separation. The title's "seq-error matching" refers to the introduction of controlled audio processing errors and frequency shifts that create a perceptual dissonance, mirroring the cognitive mismatches we experience in urban environments.
Within the exhibition space, 27 speakers create a physical manifestation of auditory cognition, with channels systematically labeled "reality" (R) and "transformed" (L). This configuration transforms the gallery into a navigable diagram of consciousness where visitors physically move between different states of sonic information, experiencing the constant negotiation between raw sensory input and cognitive processing that characterizes urban life.
The work makes tangible the paradoxical noise of reality that both overwhelms and escapes our conscious awareness. Three LED panels and vinyl graphics present a conceptual organogram of perceptual processes, creating visual counterpoints to the auditory experience while maintaining interpretive openness.
R.p.r represents research into themes that would continue to define Paquete's practice: the nature of informational noise, the limits of perception, and the construction of cognitive space through sound manipulation.
Technical Details:
27-channel sound installation
3 LED information panels
Modified electronics with error-generation circuits
Vinyl graphic elements
Variable dimensions
Digital audio processing
Keywords: sound installation, urban perception, cognitive processing, multi-channel audio, error art, glitch aesthetics, immersive environment, participatory art, phenomenological research, sonic reality, informational noise, Hugo Paquete