Taki Rhythms
Installation module inspired by the Sarayaku concept of taki using syncopation as an acoustic method. It combines laser interferences, conductive threads, live coding, and special earthenwares filled with water.
In the Kichwa language of Sarayaku, taki means rhythm or tune. Takina means to tune in. I understand taki as a concept in terms of territoriality, a situated concept of sonic governance (Kanngieser 2020), which is characterised by local rhythmic relationships between species. Guided by taki, I work on acoustic interferences rain ants create with their movements.
This installation functions with conductive threads moving up and down to the rhythm of data from laser interferences recorded in Sarayaku. I employed custom made laser-photocell arrays during fieldwork, which were set up across the trails of rain ants. Ants crossing the beams produced changes in photosensitivity. These variations of electrical resistance were registered by photocells connected to a portable Raspberry Pi running a python code. In the installation, conductive threads are connected to servo motors and to a midi-controller interfaced with Sonic Pi. The data from the ant laser interferences drive the motors which reel the threads in and out from three earthenware bowls (mukawa, Sarayaku’s vessel for drinking chicha), which are filled with water. This creates rhythmic disturbances: drums, chants, flute songs from Sarayaku, and ant sounds playing off-beat.
Whenever the threads touch the water, sounds are triggered or interrupted. The rhythm in which the threads are being moved is directed by the laser interferences which were generated by the ants in Sarayaku, and which are shown in two monitors.
The social fabric of rain ants is woven with rhythms in syncopation to the rain, and the bodies of water which rain brings into being across Sarayaku. The taki of tamya añanku presents a different evaluation of their motion-weaving performances as inspired by a specific indigenous awareness of rhythmic flows.
Operations:
amplification
interference
syncopation
Materials:
2 video channels, 3 audio channels, 3 earthenware bowls of Sarayaku (mukawa), 3 custom-made wooden plinths, 6 servo motors, conductive threads, 1 midi-conductive synthesiser
Mukawa
The mukawa bowls of my installation are vessels which the Sarayaku people use everyday to drink chicha, aswa in Kichwa, a fermented drink made of spitted yuca and forest water. I employed three very special mukawa bowls handcrafted by Clemencia from Sarayaku: one depicts tamya añanku returning to their mother in the woven shelter, the second, tamya añanku overrunning a spider, and the third shows beetle symbionts that live with them, including a big sister ant guarding and hunting down a bat. Clemencia drew the ants on the sides running in spiral forms, carrying prey and ant larvae back to their shelter. Her vision is an emblem of tiam and taki (turns and rhythms) in relation to the turning motions of Amazonian worlds.
Laser Interferences
The rhythmic oscillations of tamya añanku were visualised and made audible by amplification and interference techniques. A self-made artefact of interference based on laser and photocell arrays was deployed to create ‘light’ barriers across ant trails. This enabled me to register interferences caused by invertebrate bodies crossing lasers. These laser/ants interferences created visual diffracting patterns. The laser-photocell array was connected to a portable Raspberry Pi micro-computer using a very basic Python code I programmed that registered the changing values of electrical resistance in the photocells. Saved as a string of numerical values, I used these data in sound processing to generate syncopations and develop an aesthesis of rhythm guided by taki: an instrumentalisation of the sounds of rain ants which oppose western definitions of rhythmic scales.
- Rain ants do not rely on vision for navigation, but on chemical cues. Their tiny compound eyes do not process visual information. The intensity and power of the laser beams I deployed were of low emission, harmless to their compound eyes: green laser (533 nm wavelength), red laser (650 nm wavelength), and violet laser (405 nm wavelength).
Installation setup with conductive threads
The threads, connected to servo motors and to a conductive midi-controller, are reeled in and out from three mukawa bowls filled with water.
Whenever the threads touch the water, sounds are triggered or interrupted in Sonic Pi: a live coding program modifies the envelope of each sound (attack, decay, sustain, release). The rhythm of the threads being pulled and lowered by the motors is directed with the laser interference data, collected from rain ants crossing beams during migrations in Sarayaku.
Experiments with Computer Vision and Sound Processing
Top and middle images: MaxJitter application using computer vision libraries for motion and colour detection; first video shows sequence of laser ant interference, second image shows screenshot of program).
Bottom image: SonicPi for electroacoustic composition, live code running in exhibition, using data from laser interferences performed by rain ants.
