The physician Sergi Jordà (Madrid, 1961) has collaborated with La Fura dels Baus, the group Konic Thtr and the multifaceted Marcel·lí Antúnez. This lecturer and director of postgraduate courses in computer programming does not only think about atoms, he also composes electronic music for films, theatre and dance. The scientist Sergi Jordà has already released two CD’s with the group FMOL and shows once again that art and science go hand in hand. That’s nothing new. Stephen Hawking has already written about how intuition, so intangible and not at all Cartesian, it is essential in order to be able to discover the universe. Sergi Jordà is not alone, he is part of a hundred year old tradition of artist-scientists or scientist-artists. The examples are undeniable: Leonardo Da Vinci was a painter, but also an engineer; the writer Arthur C. Clark arose to fame with the novel 2001: An Odyssey In Space, but he was trained as a telecommunication technician; and everyone is familiar with Escher’s impossible engravings, however we often forget that he studied architecture.  

Sergi Jordà started to programme computers when he was 21, the very same day he listened to a record by Laurie Anderson, pioneer of the use of computers on stage and —ambassador of Catalan poetry in New York— when vinyl was still in its early stages. The physician-musician, Sergi Jordà, gave up the sax because he was bored of memorizing scores and tempos. Computers can do this much better, he thought. They can do the memorizing for me! Ever since Jordà silenced the sax because it wasn’t very humane, the computer has been the instrument for this physician. With the Clónicos in Madrid he used the computer, manipulated tapes and record players and with Marcel·lí Antúnez he discovered multimedia art without having any kind of leadership. They created JoAn, l'Home de Carn (JoAn, The Man Made Of Flesh), a robot made of pig’s flesh. After travelling around Europe together, they humbly came to the realization that they were not the first multimedia artists in the world. Others had got there first.

He wasn’t the first, but fame, or if you prefer recognition, spread quickly for Sergi Jordà. And the push was thanks to ReacTable, an instrument he invented along with three other musicians (Martin Kaltenbrunner, Günter Geiger and Marcos Alonso), from the Music Technology Group within the Audiovisual Institute at the Universitat Pompeu Fabra in Barcelona. It’s worthless to try to define this instrument. You must see for yourself in order to understand what it is about. ReacTable is a large interface on which one can move and relate geometric objects on its surface creating electric sounds that are added to repetitive beats, rhythms and noises that at the same time produce lights and images. Glory came to Sergi Jordà thanks to the fact that the legendary singer, Björk, used it on her tour, Volta.

But ReacTable is not only a success thanks to Björk. Far from it. If the ReacTable phenomenon works, it is because it is an electronic instrument suitable for novices, in the same way that you do not have to be a mechanic to drive a car. ReacTable’s success is due to its simple objectives. In its own creators words, ReacTable is an instrument that should be played intuitively (zero instructions, zero manuals), an instrument that even ‘children can learn to play’; it is a machine that can be played in a group and from a distance; it should be as well, and above all, a challenge to play for the most experienced. And it works, the demonstration video that can be found on the web has already received more than a million visitors.  

‘I want it to be possible to improvise playing music with a computer in the same way that a guitarist can with a guitar; for it to be easy to play, without having to rehearse for hours beforehand’, says Sergi Jordà, this self proclaimed digital luthier. It is only a matter of time before this music maker, who has room for much more, gains more respect and recognition, thanks to Björk and to all the Björks out there in the world. He is working for them.