Roberto Pugliese is a sound and media artist based in Helsinki. His work includes installations, performances, and compositions that combine sound with visuals and audience participation. He uses sound to create alternative relationships between audiences and spaces. His installations digitally process environmental sounds and videos to develop a shared sonic and visual language. He also collaborates with dancers on new media performances that experiment with alternative stages.

1. ROBERTO PUGLIESE

3. Roberto Pugliese is a sound and media artist currently based in Helsinki. His work consists of
compositions, installations and performances based on sound in combination with the visual and
audience participation. He uses sound and its transformation to establish alternative relations between
audience and the space. By collecting and digitally processing environmental sound and video material,
he works towards a common language among visual and sonic imaginaries.
Also he has been collaborating with dancers and choreographers for the creation of alternative stages
and forms of new media performance.
In my installation I am interested in the role of sound in the shaping of our experience of places and the sense of presence in
our daily life. We participate with our actions in the creation of soundscapes, be it natural, mechanical or digital.
I have been focusing on the experience of sound as physical and intimately connected with the sense of touch.
My artistic practice springs from the phenomenology of the senses of touch and hearing, and moves towards strategies of
decoupling, augmenting, subverting the usual “contact” with those channels. The result is a magnification of their impact, not
just as a force, but also of their importance as mediator of our experience. I can say my works are multimedia pieces where
the viewer participates and re-establishes a previously altered, offset relation with the location.
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4. INSTALLATIONS

5. The Space Of A Year
2-channel audiovisual installation
The space of a year unveils and explores the sonic and visual territories that we
inhabit and the transformations that they undergo during the year. Sometimes
these changes are sudden and strong, but other times they just go by gradually or
completely unnoticed.
The changing sonic and visual textures that we attribute to different seasons of
the year are dissected, blended, disrupted and distorted. The installation
contemplates how different notions of the sonic and visual transformations that
surround us reflect our perception of time – and, on the other hand, how our
perception of time is anchored in acoustic terrains.
Walking around in the space deepens the imaginative and immersive
dimension. The sonic palette triggers personal memories and subjective
perceptions of familiar places.
The space of a year creates a dialogue among the inhabitants of the same
latitude through the experience of a common sonic and visual imaginary and
the passage of time.
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6. 4 the space of a year - installation model

7. the space of a year - double projection frames 5

8. 6 the space of a year - double projection frames

9. the space of a year - double projection frames 7

10. 8 the space of a year - double projection frames

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12. puShy
sound and tactile installation
An interactive fabric of sound reacts to touch. The piece invites exploring the
intimate relation between sound and touch. Producing sound become easily
accessible by naturally touching the fabric and discovering its tactile and sonic
properties at once. The three frames are transformed into different instruments
that several participants can intuitively play at the same time. Improvising,
coordinating and "playing" together remind us that music is at the very core a
participatory and social activity.
The installation is an example of how to transform the tactile exploration of a
physical object into a performative and possibly collective sound-making
activity.
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13. puShy at Plektrum Festival - Tallin, 2011 11

14. 12 puShy at Plektrum Festival - Tallin, 2011

15. puShy at Plektrum Festival - Tallin, 2011 13

16. 14 puShy at Plektrum Festival - Tallin, 2011

17. puShy at ONEDOTZERO for Acer event, Science Museum - London, 2012 15

18. Traffic
participatory audiovisual installation
Traffic is an ambient interface for a public space realized in collaboration with
Rachel O'Dwyer. The system monitors and responds to the many and varied
flows of movement within a public space, such as crowd densities, mobility
patterns and virtual traffic on a public network. This data is subsequently used to
drive a granular synthesis soundscape and visualizations. The system is a real-
time response to the space but also incorporates a temporal dimension, storing
information about what has taken place there before, and subsequently
leveraging this data to produce subtle emergent behaviors within the system. The
system was conceptually inspired by two research imperatives: ambient
interfaces and data sonification. The soundscape produced is quite subtle and
provides information about a user’s environment in an unobtrusive fashion, only
calling attention to itself in rare circumstances such as very high incidences of
human/network traffic through the space.
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19. Traffic, visualization of visitors flow 17

20. 18 Traffic, Science Gallery, Dublin, 2010

21. Traffic, Science Gallery, Dublin, 2010 19

22. The child with the mirror
interactive audiovisual installation
The child with the mirror is an interactive installation which portrays the dream
experience. The piece is an interactive journey in physical space for one visitor at
a time. The installation presents visual elements, which are projected on multiple
flat screens and custom-made objects, multi-channel audio and provides ways
for the participant to interact and affect the piece.
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23. The child with the mirror, Joy Gallery, Dublin, 2009 21

25. PERFORMANCES

26. Live at Borealis Festival 2013
ice and live electronics
A performance for live electronics where sound from melting ice is picked and
processed real-time. While the source vanishes it provides material to be used for
musical purposes. The aleatory characteristic of the process is partially governed
by the use of live-electronics and custom software.
The performance combines these live elements with field recordings based on the
soundscape of Fortapt i naturen (lost in nature) by Thorolf Thuestad.
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27. Borealis Festival, Bergen, Norway, 2013 25

28. 26 Borealis Festival, Bergen, Norway, 2013

29. e-mpact A
digitally augmented audiovisuall performance
e-mpact A is a multimedia dance performance where choreographed and
improvised elements coexist and articulate themselves through motion, visuals
and sound.
The piece stems from both electronic and environmental impact. The
performance takes an ecological point of view regarding the relation between a
cyborg and its environment, who affect and react to each other in a fluid
feedback loop.
The visuals appear as organisms that occupy the same space as that of the
dancer, interacting with him. Their movement is driven by the sound as if they
were dancing to it.
When the visual elements and the dancer’s body are close enough, the costume
becomes the point of contact that makes the dialogue between real and virtual
possible.
The artistic team includes also costume designer Sampo Lehtinen, industrial
designer Mikko Anttilainen and media artist Tuukka Takala.
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30. 28 E-mpact A - CARTES FLUX festival, Espoo, Finland, 2012

31. E-mpact A - CARTES FLUX festival, Espoo, Finland, 29
2012

32. 30 E-mpact A - CARTES FLUX festival, Espoo, Finland, 2012

33. Augmented dance performance
digitally augmented audiovisuall performance
In this audiovisual performance with Beniamino Borghi, we search for an
audiovisual dialogue on and off stage. The dancer, confined on the little table,
becomes a canvas for the projection, driven by the sound. At the same time his
movement creates sound picked by the microphone underneath the table. A
conversation among different media is established.
Presented at Loikka Festival, Helsinki, 2012.
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34. 32 Loikka festival, Helsinki, 2012

35. Visual performance
digitally augmented audiovisuall performance
In this collaboration with the ensemble Ö, lead by composer Tuomas Palonen, I
exclusively work on performing visuals which are animated, accompany and
complement the music played by the band. The concept is that a dancer guides
with iconic gestures the performers, which play independently following different
musical rules and tempi. The result is a complex intertwine of media and
performative layers.
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36. 34 Harakkasaari Art Gallery, Helsinki, 2011

37. Lavaklubi at Finnish National Theater, Helsinki, 2011 35

38. 36 Lavaklubi at Finnish National Theater, Helsinki, 2011

39. Selection of works
INSTALLATION Multimedia performances with Ö orchestra at Performance
Club Hidas, December 2011, Tampere (FI); Harakkasaari Art
PuShy, a tactile sonic installation, Science Museum, 31 Gallery, May 2011, Helsinki (FI); Lavaklubi at Finnish National
October 2012, London (UK), and Plektrum festival, 8-18 Theater, May 2011, Helsinki (FI).
September 2011, Tallinn (EE).
simpleLife, generative sound piece for 8 channels, 4for8 event,
Traffic, sound and visual responsive installation, with Rachel TAI studio, University of Art and Design, April 2011, Helsinki
O’Dwyer, BIORHYTHM exhibition, Eyebeam Art (FI).
+Technology Center, August 2011, New York (US), and
Science Gallery, July-September 2010, Dublin (IE). Interactive digital performance workshop in collaboration with
the Beckett Centre, Science Gallery, 7 March 2009, Dublin
The child with the mirror, interactive installation for multiple (IE).
projections and surround sound, Joy Gallery, 26-28 June 2009,
Dublin (IE). Sound design for the play “The Insanity of Mary Girard” by
Lanie Robertson, at Samuel Beckett Theatre, Trinity College
Action painting through digital media, interactive installation, Dublin, 4-7 December 2008, Dublin (IE).
Science Gallery, 26 January 2009, Dublin (IE).
PERFORMANCE
Live set at Boreali Festival, 9 March 2013, Bergen (NO).
E-mpact A – audiovisual dance performance, with dancer/
choreographer Mikko Kallinen, Cartes Flux festival, 17
October 2012, Espoo (FI).
Augmented dance performance with Beniamino Borghi,
Loikka Festival, 24 March 2012, Helsinki (FI).
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40. ROBERTO PUGLIESE © 2013
http://robertopugliese.net/