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Installation views at Palais De Tokyo, Paris |
Sat in an NCP car park on Brewer Street, Soho is Ada – named
after Ada Lovelace who was a 19th century mathematician who is often
referred to as the world’s first computer programmer and who also collaborated
with the renowned Charles Babbage.
Programmed to dance, it was just a few years ago (2010) that
Ada existed in another guise. Prior to being re-built by Conrad Shawcross, Ada
was a welding robot in a car factory painted in a stylist orange. Now stripped back and hacked, the beautiful
aluminium Ada is aesthetically similar to Shawcross’s response to Titian's Diana created for the National Gallery in a unique collaboration with The Royal Ballet.
The Ada project is an ongoing
series of musical commissions between Shawcross and contemporary composers. By
placing musicians into a series of creative constraints Shawcross is pushing
for a unique means of music production. Collaborating and working with four
electronic music pieces composed by women, Ada (the machine) and its dance is
the inspiration for the music. The electronic music pulsates with the
electronic powered movements of the machine as a human directive is added by
the musicians who created the pieces.
Relations, composed
by Holly Herndon along with the other musical commissions is available on a
limited edition of 100 copies on laser etched 12” black vinyl at a snazzy £200
price tag to boot – but then it is a limited edition (what did you expect).
Click here to listen to Holly Herndon's piece Relations and see below for a short clip about the work:
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