fft_Materialism is a new series curated by Riforma. The projects and subjects involved are invited to reflect on their use of the Fourier Transform algorithms. Can a mathematical formula be considered a living being? What are the relationships between non-human and human entities? Is it possible to expand human narratives understanding the intra-actions within the digital realm? These and other questions are part of an investigation which dresses the shapes of experimental music, in a playful hybridization of academic intuitions and DIY practices. 

The first release of the series features the collaborative project GN by France-based 乃٥乃 & Ougdol. This is a speculative tale told through the bodies/non-bodies of gnomic entities. As we travel deeper into this spectral realm, you realize there is no difference between walls and wetness, obscurity and warmth, up or down, wide or thick. Gnomystique of the new era to come, GN is an album whose sonic body is structured between partials and spectral morphings, unlocalized voices, and quick high-pitched gestures. When listening, the focus may shift on the materiality of imagination itself, as well as on the emergence of a new perception of spectral territories, never far from the environment to which we belong. The release comes in a bundle with a riso-printed zine and maps provided by the duo as a reference to losing ourselves in the gnome-building, along with a glossary of useful terms that we may overhear mentioned among the spectral figurations of the album.

As the duo says, the term “gnome in the shell”, much inspired by “ghost in the machine”, was a point of origin for the creation of the work you are handling. In a diffraction of ironic perceptions (the monstrosity of IA millennium vs the refuge of folkloric tales) we see Gnomes (AI ghosts, defects and errors) jumping on and off amusing and ridiculous clothes, revealing a familiarity not as cute as we may believe at first glance. We take the chance to underline the concept of “un-cute”, since it is one of the reasons behind the series, which focuses on specific forms of implementation of the Fourier transform: a materialist approach deeper than the commodification of it.