Commenting on digital overload, social media addiction and 21st century music consumption, curators of Barcelona-based label Modern Obscure Music Christian Lopez & Pedro Rufi are making a statement with their latest album. Titled PRSNT, the album features a six-minute (yes that’s six minutes total) compilation of artists, accompanied by photography, videos and written work that speak to the fast-paced world we currently find ourselves in.
Who would believe you could make an entire album fit into just six minutes? These musicians found a way to do it in this latest manifestation of hypnotic electronic beats and symphonies that challenge the ways society consumes everyday living.
The concept of PRSNT was devised after the artists came across a study detailing how the fast-paced nature of online content consumption is shortening attention spans, altering the ways audiences engage with music digitally. Combing different artistic interpretations of our modern lives, each specially made track runs approximately thirty-two seconds, presenting a compilation that lasts just six minutes and thirty-four seconds.
Striving to create this awareness through a series of complex compositions featuring beats, waves and synths, the artists invite the audience to take a second look at our current society through their latest project. Stay tuned, because this episode is to be continued…
The concept of PRSNT was devised after the artists came across a study detailing how the fast-paced nature of online content consumption is shortening attention spans, altering the ways audiences engage with music digitally. Combing different artistic interpretations of our modern lives, each specially made track runs approximately thirty-two seconds, presenting a compilation that lasts just six minutes and thirty-four seconds.
Striving to create this awareness through a series of complex compositions featuring beats, waves and synths, the artists invite the audience to take a second look at our current society through their latest project. Stay tuned, because this episode is to be continued…
What is your personal and professional relationship like, and how has it evolved since you first began? What inspires or drives you both to keep creating together?
We complement each other pretty well. Coming from different creative backgrounds, we get to places that alone would be impossible to reach. Pedro was a bit tired of releasing music in a conventional way, and we found a way to make it happen in a different format. PRSNT was the result, a multidisciplinary project where photography, music, video and writing coexist.
Your latest album, PRSNT, is a global project that combines different artistic interpretations of our modern lives. The project aims to comment on digital overload, social media addiction and 21st century music consumption. Could you expand on this? How does the album address or challenge these digital addictions?
We live in a strange moment, always busy, having the feeling of being always late. PRSNT is a manifestation of that. Different visions of that same feeling, there is no better moment than now to reconsider how we live and how we want to keep spending the rest of our lives. Each piece talks about a problem, a topic that impacts in our lives. We are victims of a digital revolution.
The idea originated from a study detailing how the fast-paced nature of online content consumption is shortening attention spans. What sparked your interest in this topic and why did you decide to pursue an album that centers around it?
Since we met in Amsterdam, we started chatting about how we consume today as a society and that evolved in a more conceptual way into an album form. Everything started when we had pizza [together] back in 2019 and from there we evolved the idea that later on we called PRSNT.
We both are huge fans of storytelling as an art form, from film to music to literature. Stories need time to be consumed, and to be digested too. So, we thought the best way to explain the idea of PRSNT was telling a story from different points of views and using different art disciplines and forms to arrive at all audiences.
We both are huge fans of storytelling as an art form, from film to music to literature. Stories need time to be consumed, and to be digested too. So, we thought the best way to explain the idea of PRSNT was telling a story from different points of views and using different art disciplines and forms to arrive at all audiences.
You’ve been working on this project for the last two years. Would you mind telling us more about how this project came to be and the creative process you underwent, from its conception to its release?
We started curating the musical part and collecting the pieces. It was like building a 12-piece puzzle that was mixed with thousands of other random puzzle pieces. Great artists apart from the confirmed ones were interested. The selection was closed, but the compilation had a limit.
Then we started the phase of the selection of directors together with Zico Judge, the Executive Producer of the audiovisual side of PRSNT and the film production Blur. While conceptualising and shooting the films, we started the selection of images and photographers for the booklet inside of the vinyl with the help of Dani Pujalte, and Marc Monguilot on the design of the album, making everything seem cohesive and part of one same concept.
Along the way [we did encounter] increasing challenges, [since] it is a super expansive project. It won't stop growing every day, and every door opens a thousand more. Today we are working hand in hand with different festivals to show and expand the project.
Then we started the phase of the selection of directors together with Zico Judge, the Executive Producer of the audiovisual side of PRSNT and the film production Blur. While conceptualising and shooting the films, we started the selection of images and photographers for the booklet inside of the vinyl with the help of Dani Pujalte, and Marc Monguilot on the design of the album, making everything seem cohesive and part of one same concept.
Along the way [we did encounter] increasing challenges, [since] it is a super expansive project. It won't stop growing every day, and every door opens a thousand more. Today we are working hand in hand with different festivals to show and expand the project.
On PRSNT's website, it reads “we’ve become a society that lives in the fast lane. Call it habits call it addictions. In a world out of time, present cannot satisfy you. Constantly chasing money, power, success, and a wilder, faster pace of life.” How does this album provide a deeper understanding of these issues? How does it create a space for reflection?
PRSNT invites the audience to rethink the issues of our times, the addictions, the bad habits and how that impacts our mental health. Becoming aware is the first step to change, and that’s our ambition with this project.
This album comes as a compilation that engages with our shortened digital attention-spans. All twelve tracks are just thirty-two seconds to both confront and respond to this social anomaly. In this era of shortened attention spans and living life in the ‘fast lane,’ do you think music is becoming undervalued?
As we are in front of a constant massive wave of information, we cannot spend more than 30” seconds to decide if a song is good or not, because we feel that we are losing the opportunity to discover something better. It happens with music, with an image on Instagram or even in a museum where we cannot be more than a limited time in front of a picture because we know we have billions of others pictures to see and discover.
The album features a variety of artists with different musical, visual, and literary backgrounds. What provoked this particular collection of artists?
We wanted PRSNT to be a variety of visions and interpretations under one same topic. The result is 40 art pieces from different creators, musicians, photographers, writers and film directors. Our aim is that this project can provoke more manifestations around how we consume. By no means should it be a final thing but an ongoing conversation to be more present.
The compilation concludes with activist and musician Ryuichi Sakamoto to help build the case of this social critique, providing a moment to reflect. What was the collaboration process like? How does his work in this project further speak to and emphasise the message you are trying to send to your audience?
Ryuichi Sakamoto was the first artist we wanted to approach for PRSNT and was also the first artist confirmed to join the project. Sakamoto contributes to the project with a piece under the name of “silence.” He does not want to explain the meaning of the piece, but we understand “silence” like an invitation from the maestro to evade us for a few seconds from all the excess of information/noise to which we are exposed today.
How does this album alter the way audiences interact with music? What are you hoping people will take away from this project?
Our aim is to provoke a conversation, and also stop for a second to meditate on how we can do better, and consume more healthily.
Speaking of the future, are there any other projects and exhibitions you’re currently working on? What else can we expect from this release?
The physical part of this project is almost concluded but we are going to announce the audiovisual part in the following days, and already at the same time we are working closely with different partners on how we can exhibit it.
What is the best way to end this project? Or how can this project conclude? It's a hard thing to do, it is like an episode - to be continued. On the other hand, yes, we are working together between Modern Obscure Music and Created by Us on other potential projects that merge communication, music and media as a starting point.
What is the best way to end this project? Or how can this project conclude? It's a hard thing to do, it is like an episode - to be continued. On the other hand, yes, we are working together between Modern Obscure Music and Created by Us on other potential projects that merge communication, music and media as a starting point.