As part of a sys|calls performance, an office worker performs a choreographed set of actions on a prepared PC. In real-time, millions of microscopic software operations that power these digital actions are turned into visuals projected on the ground, on a 12x6 meters surface. In parallel, the software activity is piped into a custom sound synthesis process, mixing immediate sonification with more abstracted methods, self-referentially using sonic materials derived from the executables producing the activity. The audience is free to move through the space, experiencing the floor projections and quad channel music from different angles, or simply lay immersed in intense software for the 18-minute performance.

Our everyday interaction with software is a polished and highly curated experience, exposing very little of the internal operations of software. Behind the scenes, millions of actions need to be performed every second. The ‘system call’ occurs on the boundary between our applications and the operating system, transmitting messages back and forth. In sys|calls, we reveal these invisible computer processes.