The work develops threads initiated in the film *Attention: Light!* by Józef Robakowski and Wiesław Michalak, inspired by notes from Paul Sharits from 1981. Sharits proposed translating the music of Frédéric Chopin into color and light – each note had its color equivalent. Paweł Janicki continues this thread, transforming the original audiovisual arrangement into an autonomous algorithmic system. In its miniature version – embedded in the network – the work operates in real-time, synchronizing devices in space and creating a momentary, shared rhythm of perception: an attempt to capture the moment when the piece exists only as a relationship between sound, color, and time.

Attention: Light! Attention: Collectivity!

“Attention: Light! 3.0” is a work that begins from the mental and aesthetic point reached by “Attention: Light! 2.0.” Around the turn of 2009/2010, I worked on transforming Józef Robakowski and Wiesław Michalak’s video work “Attention: Light!” into an installation using a Yamaha Disclavier player piano (an instrument firmly established at the intersection of the worlds of music and media art, for example through the works of Jean-Claude Risset and Toshio Iwai) to play a piece (Frédéric Chopin’s Mazurka Op. 68 No. 4), to which Paul Sharits (always interested in exploring basic aesthetic qualities and their relationships) added a procedure for converting the direction of the melodic line into colors displayed on a screen. Sharits’ procedure arose from his visit to Poland in 1981 and personal interaction with Robakowski; In 2004, Robakowski and Michalak utilized it, materializing the original version of “Attention: Light!” in a form incorporating elements of structural cinema, synesthetics, and the very essence of musicality.

Part of my work on “Attention: Light! 2.0” involved transcribing the audio recording used in the first version of the work into an electronic score (MIDI) to use it to control the pianola. This required precise copying of tempo changes, dynamic subtleties, and irregularities of all kinds—so that the recording precisely matched the performance of the piece used in the video and synchronized with the visual part. Furthermore, at one point, the pianist briefly switched to playing a part that was not part of Chopin’s work—so the original score could only serve as a reference anchor.

After completing the preparations and even after the exhibitions/presentations of “Attention: Light! 2.0” at Warsaw Autumn and at London’s Dilston Groove Gallery, the topic lingered in my mind, becoming a problem that needed solving. I was puzzled by the nature of my work: I first removed the audio from the audio/video recording of “Attention: Light!”, replacing the mechanical tape recording with messages (commands) transmitted from the computer to the pianola. Then I did the same with the image recording—thus, the work returned to its almost Platonic, disembodied, and conceptual origins.

I kept turning this idea over in my head and experimenting with its implications. At some point, I decided to take the same path even further: I wrote a program that recreated both the musical and visual components of the work from data and algorithms I had obtained through aesthetic “reverse engineering.” At this stage, the only remaining mystery was the piano sound: although I could simulate it somehow, I decided that wouldn’t be a good solution and replaced it with a sine wave synthesis—severing the last direct link to matter. Instead, I added a mechanism that synchronized playback (“Attention: Light! 3.0” can be run on any device with a web browser, display, and speaker) with a real-time clock, so devices in close proximity played the piece in relative synchronization, creating a momentary point of shared perception for their owners.