MATRIZ is a programming and creative proposal that intends to launch new challenges and paradigms related to the digital radio context, questioning and experimenting with new ways of doing radio in the twenty-first century.

This project started development on collaborative software that allows to manage multiple audio connections and its relations throughout the internet, by creating new geographies and allowing new areas of relationship between artists and audience.

It was a starting point to research the potential of a networked creative expression and also to design decentralization strategies and interdisciplinary collaboration.
Due to its potential for questioning univocal relationship between creators and audiences, digital radio is a privileged medium for this experiment.
Throughout this project several themes were deepened, such as creative software, digital radio, networking music, artistic communities and physical/digital auditorium.
Montemor Setup

In this context, music was the artistic practice chosen to experiment with the MATRIZ software. The articulation between network connected musicians and the multiple combinations and interactions between the different physical places of presentation and listening spaces on the Internet were tested with a collectively written musical piece.

This project included two artistic residencies – one of them at Oficinas do Convento, in Montemor-o-Novo, and the other at Sonoscopia, in Porto – that worked as research, creation and collaboration labs. It concluded with a public presentation of the musical piece created throughout the duration of the project, occurring simultaneously in three geographical locations (Porto, Montemor-o-Novo and Lisboa).

After completion of this project, Matriz software aims to be a tool open to the national and international artistic communities.

MATRIZ is a project promoted by stress.fm in partnership with Oficinas do Convento, Sonoscopia, Osso, Trienal de Arquitectura de Lisboa, Digitópia – Casa da Música e Câmara Municipal de Montemor-o-Novo. Funded by Direção Geral das Artes.

OFICINAS DO CONVENTO :: MONTEMOR-O-NOVO
João Bastos :: circuit bending
João Sofio :: circuit bending
Rodolfo Pimenta :: circuit bending
Tiago Fróis :: circuit bending

SONOSCOPIA :: PORTO
Gustavo Costa :: acoustic laptop + amplified objects
Henrique Fernandes :: acoustic laptop + amplified objects

PALÁCIO SINEL DE CORDES :: LISBOA
Nuno Torres :: alto sax
Ricardo Jacinto :: cello + electronics

Filipe Quaresma :: announcer

Cláudio Rego :: software designer
Hugo Martiniano :: software designer
Vasco Pita :: software designer

After a cycle of residencies that led to the creation of a collaborative software and to the development of a set of practices and strategies in the field of network music, took place the final presentation of the project MATRIZ.

In this event, in April 15th 2016, two main challenges in the areas of music and radio were undertaken, still in exploratory process:

To create a performance situation that joined three groups of musicians distributed through three cities (Montemor-o-Novo, Porto e Lisboa) that managed to maintain a dimension of immersion and collaboration, given the distance between the ensemble.

To create a closer relation with the radio audience through a browser interface composed of three volume faders, each of them representing one of the cities where the musicians were . This way the audience could define their own listening experience and, consequently, their own path through the performance.

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In my case the duet, with Nuno Torres, happened in the foyer of Trienal de Arquitectura de Lisboa. This is a very resonant and reverberant room with stone floor and high ceiling. A direct connection to the street and to the main staircase of the building.

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Preparation of the cello with a spring connecting the bridge to a metal plate tensioned in the endpin.

Stereo system receiving our signal mixed with the incomeing signals from the other locations.