What if Neanderthal music had evolved alongside human sounds, or if Andean quipus shaped computer music, or if Les Paul had played the viola da gamba? Polish design house panGenerator gives us a look.
Produced for “Eufonie,” the 6th International Festival of Central and Eastern European Music staged across multiple cities in Poland, “Alternative Music” is a fanciful speculative reimagining of music technology in a parallel timeline. We’ve seen Warszawa’s panGenerator create interactive productions like this before, but this is on a new level of invention. Some imagined scenarios for you:
“Quiputron,” 1981 – Inca Republic. Incan and Aztec technologies have influenced modern drum machines with the quipu knot system. (To be fair, this has influenced computer science, too – worth exploring!)
“Craniovox,” ca 30,000 BC – Iraq. Neanderthals aren’t wiped out; instead, they develop a performance practice based on their unique vocal tract.
“Viola voltara,” 1690 – Venice. Amplification happens in the baroque instead of the 20th century – and winds up overtaking the guitar. (Amplified viola da gamba is a thing but imagine rock music is built on that. Actually, let’s just make that happen, gambists.)
It’s worth exploring these things because they open us up to possibilities in our current tech. As panGenerator write:
Those we perceive today as “normal,” “default”—violin, piano, trumpet—did not appear overnight in their current, mature forms. Moreover, this form is not the only possible and most perfect one—the arrangement of keys or valves was influenced by numerous factors. Some elements of modern instruments arose from arbitrary decisions, others were the result of fortunate accidents, and still others were choices among several potential development paths. We can imagine that different circumstances—cultural, technological, geopolitical—could have significantly influenced the development of instruments, so they would look completely different today, and perhaps some of those known to us now might not have had the chance to develop, losing in a truly Darwinian struggle for survival.
Thanks to Jakub for this one. Krzysztof Cybulski, Krzysztof Goliński, and Jakub Koźniewski produced the project.
https://pangenerator.com/projects/alternative-music