#virtual feelings

[lvlsrvryhigh]

LVLSRVRYHI-056: Réelle | The Levels Are Very High

Hey! How's it going? I usually start with the introductions so, for anyone who doesn’t know, who are you / where are you from? Real name: Yannick Pozo Vento. I'm from a relatively small town near Cologne and son of an Afro-Cuban father and a German mother. We lived in the Netherlands for some time but then moved back to Germany.

What are some of your early musical memories? As my father and German grand father were musicians I've always been surrounded my music all day. My mother had this immense Vinyl, CD and VHS collection so I picked my favs which were Stan Getz, MJ, Elvis and some electronic works and listened to them non stop. I think at age three I started visiting some kind of music conservatory shortly before we moved back to Germany, where I took private piano lessons for some years.

Consistently, the art and imagery that you pair with your music always includes photos of yourself, most often body portraits. Is a sense of embodiment an important aspect of making music for you? I think that's related to many factors. I like honesty in art and music, I like showing people who I am. Electronic music and especially the kind that's focusing on sound design and complex techniques can be considered a fetish - to me at least. So I like to pair my fetish for sounds with my own sexuality which then becomes this semi-pornographic energy. I also think that it's time to blurr the lines between pornography and complex music, which has been considered a no-go for a long time. It's this combination of unrelated things that expands our horizon and redefines limits. That aside I just think we should all start to show how much we love ourselves.

You've referred to the title of your recent album 'Satura' - released back in April on #FEELINGS - as referring to a "short form of saturation, as some sort of state of constant over saturation in every way imaginable, physically and mentally." Both the sound design and your own personal experiences that feed into the album are readily reflective of this. Did you find the process of creating 'Satura' to be freeing or healing in any way? The process of compiling Satura wasn't really healing for me. It's the daily process of creating music which makes me discover my limbic abilities and which truly fulfills me. As I usually write 5 to 7 tracks per week this process has become some sort of ritual or meditation to me.

A fair amount of your output on Soundcloud is made of up of edits, your 'splices' of Quay Dash and Rihanna in particular stand out as favourites of mine. How do you approach handling other people's tracks, considering the fact that your music is so deeply rooted in your own experiences? Honestly it's a pretty irrational or primitive way of approaching music. I just listen to the acapellas and imagine what I would like to hear and then I do it.

From what I can work out, you have a couple of releases forthcoming on Aisha Devi's Danse Noire label right? How do you see these next releases in relation to 'Satura' and the other work you've put out up til now? I don't want to spoil the experience too much but I can say that my tracks on Danse Noire are very unique. There will be some things people have never heard before as I wanted to tell my personal story related to Schizophrenia.

I wanted to ask you about your membership within the Berlin arm of New World Dysorder - an Oakland-based collective established by yhayha and Jasmine Infiniti - since their aim to embrace "what is perceived as disorderly in socio-cultural contexts" seems to correlate heavily with the concerns behind your own music. What drew you to get involved with the project? As I am gender-fluid I resonate with the NWD concept very much. I also think that Transgender people are underrepresented in electronic music so I want to help them.

Did you set out with a particular idea for this mix? Where and how did you record it? Most of my tracks or mixes aren't really conceptual as I don't rely on rationality while making or listening music. So the mix is basically just what I felt like at that particular moment. It's been recorded in Ableton.

What do you have planned for the rest of 2017? I will probably make more music, find out new DSP techniques and try to express myself through them and go out, have fun and spend time with the people I love.

If you had to pick something for people to listen to immediately after this mix what would it be? More of my stuff.

[dinqus]

Virtual Feelings

oh i wrote a short story for my english class and i dunno i like it? 

its pretty cool i guess c: 

It seemed like a cold day. No one could really feel it, but they could tell just by the white layer that covered the ground. No one could really feel anything, or so they thought.  A boy who goes by the name of Scott Meridan, began his daily schedule of heading to the market, coming back home, cooking, sleeping, and then waking up to do it all over again. Some days he would be spontaneous and go the park or over to the museum even, but that was a rare occasion.

“Ahh, setting s42”, the town butcher said as he stepped out of his shop. “It’s a nice one, rather than that hellish r15!” Scott couldn’t disagree more; he enjoyed that setting the most. It was peaceful to him, listening to the pitter patter of the water, it made this world seem more realistic. He opposed small talk though and decided to just nod his head slightly.

“I’ll take the usual please” he said barely audible. The butcher nodded and handed him what looked like a small chunk of beef. He thanked the man and began walking further into town to continue his schedule. This world, he thought, it was so peculiar. Everyone is so…happy, similar to that of a utopia, but he knew for sure that this world, this virtual world, was not even close. He pondered on this subject quite often, but he tried to push it away because no good came of it.  After he picked up the last of his groceries, he headed back to his flat, but was intrigued by this random girl on the streets. She was about his age and was shouting to the people around her.

“Come on people! Can you not see that this world is corrupt! It’s not right!” Scott was awestruck. Is she really that idiotic to do this? Before he knew it, he was running to the girl and had accidently tackled her in an attempt to make her stop. He put his hand over her mouth to try to get her stop this nonsense.

“Shhhh! Are you trying to get yourself deleted?! Stop, you-“ Scott tried to hold in his yelp as he felt the girl bite his hand. “Ow! What is your problem!? I’m trying to save your life!” He said through his teeth.

“I’m not the one that needs help, these people do! Look at them! They are like robots!” she angrily puffed. The conversation carried on like this, and later Scott noticed that she didn’t have anywhere to stay, so he invited her over. He learned that her name was Alex and that she was kicked out by her parents for being rebellious. He couldn’t blame her though; Scott was close to the breaking point as well. He was sick of this life, this world. After a few minutes they made it back to his place, and had set down his groceries on the table.

“It’s weird isn’t it? This place, this world, us...we aren’t really people are we? We are just mere programs created to be a test for the actual earth. It’s unfair, really. They can’t just throw disasters after disasters at us and see how we handle it, we are living…we can feel things too…” she trailed off and began staring at nothing, as if she was in deep thought. Scott let her talk because they were safe here, in his apartment where no one could report them. Plus, he agreed with every word she had said, it made him feel better that he wasn’t the only one who despised this world. It’s not fair, the programmers don’t realize that we too can have feelings, we are living and breathing, we are as real as the humans on earth, he thought. He didn’t realize how much pent up anger he had inside of him until now.

“You know, they programmed my little brother to be diagnosed with cancer. I loved him, I shared my thoughts with him and how cruel this world was, he felt the same way. My parents…can I even call them my parents?” She let out a bitter, cold laugh, “They didn’t even love him as much as I did. One year later, he died from the disease. They killed him…you want to know what his last words were? ‘It’s not fair’, he said to me as I watched him go limp in my arms.” She paused for a couple seconds and then began talking again. “These programmers are sick. How could they kill an eleven year old?!” She was fuming now and tears were falling from her eyes. He felt her pain, her anger…he wanted to do something, break out of this world. Scott thought of something, a plan he had a while back, it was risky, but at this point he did not care.

 “I’ve got an idea.” He explained to Alex his plan. That at night, when everyone was sleeping, they would go into town and paint the walls, streets, everything, vandalize the whole town with words. Not just any words though, these words will hold an immense amount of feeling.

That night they grabbed their paint buckets and spray cans and proceeded with this plan that would hopefully strike the people of this town in the morning. It was hard work, but they had enjoyed it. Scott smiled for once, something he has not done in a very long time and Alex laughed. It was a genuine laugh and he was happy for her. She hadn’t laughed nor smiled ever since her brother passed and here she was doing both. They ran down the streets leaving streaks of red and blue that covered the roads and buildings. It was about four in the morning when they had finally finished. They stepped back and admired their work. Colorful words filled the town, every corner, every where they looked there were words, their words.

“We have feelings. We are alive. We are human. Live, Feel” these are only some of the words that were written all over town. Scott and Alex were proud; this will get peoples’ attention and help them realize what kind of world we live in. These people need to take control of their lives; they are more than just programs.

“This will work, Alex. We did it.”, Scott exhaled. For once in his life he felt joyful. He knew this would work out, he knew that the people would definitely see it in the morning, but he didn’t know that someone else was watching. The Butcher sat there and watched them from his window, appalled by their actions. A couple beeps and clicks sounded and the content man went back to sleep. Scott and Alex made their way back home with anticipation for the morning. They couldn’t wait to see peoples’ faces and expressions. They were literally jumping up and down with excitement and couldn’t sleep that night.

  “What’s that?” The unknown man asked the other.

“Hm. It seems that there are a couple glitches.” He stated.

“A glitch?” the man questioned.

“Yea, some bugged programs, no problem though. It can easily be fixed…” the man began messing around with some commands for a few seconds.

”There! See, now it’s gone.” He smiled at the other man proudly pointing to the computer screen.

“I deleted the programs, so it should work perfectly now” they both carried on with their jobs, as if nothing had happened that winter evening.