Iván Paz
Iván Paz, Ciudad de México, 1978
Residency period: February – May 2016
I studied physics and mathematics at the National Autonomous University of México (UNAM). During this time, I’ve also experimented with music and photography. My main interests involve science, art, technology, and how their interactions can create new aesthetic, conceptual and thinking directions. In 2006 I started working as an audio engineering professor. From this process, in 2011 I conceibed and leaded a seminar in mathematical methods applied to music composition at UNAM. The activity developed there, produced several collaborations and working processes, for example live coding sessions in collaboration with the National Centre of the Arts of México (NCA).
My current work involves artificial intelligence methodologies for the study of musical features and parameter spaces exploration of generative systems. This work is framed into a free and open source philosophy, that considers the act of coding as a social and political expression. I am also interesting in how this conception allows different communities to appropriate technology.
My recent activity includes workshops in several venues, e.g the CIRMMT of McGill University (Canada), the NCA (Mexico) and the Polytechnic University of Catalonia (Spain). Laptop execution for live performance, for example, “A code-collaboration piece” (Source 2.0, México City, 2013), pieces for code and acoustic instruments (Spain, 2015 and Germany 2016), “some pieces for laptop” recorded during live coding sessions, and the Escandalizer project a crossover of choreography, mapping, and sound.
Some of my research collaborations involve a guest student residency at the Institute for Music and Media of Düsseldorf, and being a founder member of the SEMIMUTICAS seminar (UNAM) for researching in computing, music and mathematics. In summer 2013 I earned a PhD grant of the National Centre for Science and Technology of México for the the Artificial Intelligence program of the Polytechnic University of Catalonia, where I am currently working with the soft computing group. In 2015 I won the artistic research grant Banc Sabadell – Hangar for the construction of a holistic interface that guides perceptual exploration of algorithmic systems parameter spaces.
