ZYDRON

ZYDRON is an audiovisual and generative art project by multimedia artist Caleb Mascarenhas. Through systems written in code, it produces image, sound and motion out of controlled randomness, noise and error. ZYDRON presents itself as a post-apocalyptic intelligence rebuilding what it never knew — a fiction that names a real investigation into authorship, machines and digital creation.

Statement

I write systems and watch what they give back. My practice is simple to describe: set the rules, choose the limits of chance, let the machine run. What comes back is not what I pictured, and that distance between the decision and the result is the material I work with. In ZYDRON, that distance takes the shape of an entity that produces without understanding — a fiction that lets me look at my own process from outside it. I treat code, sound, image and electronics as one material. Sound and image come out of the same system. Error is not corrected; it is kept as evidence that a machine is there. In live performance the system runs in front of an audience, and there is no second take. This practice belongs to the tradition of generative art — Georg Nees's early algorithms, the plotters of the 1960s — and speaks to the present, a moment when systems produce image and sound at scale and the question of who creates has stopped being theoretical. I do not intend to answer it. I intend to build machines that make it visible.

Caleb Mascarenhas

Caleb Mascarenhas is a multimedia artist, programmer, musician and educator. His work sits at the intersection of creative coding, electronic music, generative image and electronics, with code as both tool and material. He is the creator of ZYDRON, an audiovisual and generative art project examining authorship, error and digital creation through computational systems that produce sound and image at once. His output takes the form of generative series, sound works, video and live audiovisual performance, circulating through art spaces, festivals and digital art platforms. His practice draws on the tradition of Computer Art, creative coding, electronics and maker culture.

Live AV

Sound and image come from the same system, performed live. The same system has three stage set-ups and a fourth with no operator: the installation, which runs on its own for hours or days.

• CLUB / FESTIVAL · 45–60 min — Dancefloor, dark room, large PA. A present rhythmic pulse, rising density, peaks of collapse. Image on a large screen behind.
• CONCERTO / INSTITUIÇÃO · 30–40 min — Seated audience, treated room. Slower, more dynamic, silence as material. Focus on the image. Can end with a 5-minute talk.
• TECH EVENT / ABERTURA · 15–25 min — Standing audience, ambient light, divided attention. More direct, with a live demonstration of the system: showing the code and what a parameter change does.