Electronicos Fantasticos

After being awarded the NYU Abu Dhabi summer internship grant, I set out to Tokyo to work with Ei Wada and his Electronicos Fantasticos project. Electronicos Fantasticos is a project that aims "to reincarnate old electrical appliances as new electromagnetic instruments, invents new ways to play music, and co-create orchestras and festivals with diverse people and artist/musician Ei Wada." I helped the team to perform at the Fuji Rock' 22 Music Festival as well.

Initially we were preparing to perform a version of the Bon Odori dance at the Fuji Rock festival. My work involved assisting with all the electronics at this time and there were instances I would also improvise on music compositions with the team. For Fuji Rock, we traveled with all our equipment from Tokyo to Naeba Ski Resort, in the Niigata prefecture of Japan. As our performance was late at night, we spent quite a bit of the evening setting up for the performance.

It was a great and learning experience helping out with the preparation for Fuji Rock. After the team got done with Fuji Rock, I got involved more in the technical aspects of the project and started creating instruments like the barcode scanner or the electric fan harp. Even after leaving Japan, I have still been in touch with Wada-san and the rest of the team. We have also set-up a "WORLDWIDE Orchest Lab" to bring together musicians globally who are interested in creating instruments like the ones Electronicos Fantasticos makes.