During my first months in The Netherlands in 2019, I bought a Nintendo Switch and started playing Mario Kart with my roommates. When I found out that Joy-Cons (Nintendo Switch controllers) could be connected to a computer, I started working on a piece for ensemble which used them as interfaces for musicians to play with. Due to the Corona Pandemic, this piece never came to fruition.

During the Pandemic, due to the gigantic amounts of free time that needed to be spent at home, I started playing even more Mario Kart with my roommates. We would spend 3 to 4 hours glued to a TV screen playing the game.

In this piece, while 4 people are playing the game, the controller information is, at the same time, sent to Max/MSP in order to feed synthesis processes and live-manipulate the original soundtrack of the game. This controller data is also sent to an AI which's learning material is the soundtracks of three iterations of Mario Kart which I have played myself: Mario Kart for Nintendo DS (my first ever handheld console); Mario Kart 7 for 3DS; Mario Kart 8 for Nintendo Switch.

The piece is somewhat an homage to the people (and game) that kept me sane throughout the weird times of the Corona Pandemic.

This piece was premiered by Dustin James, Julia Bovee-Schroeder and Sergi(a) Vilavella Font at the CAAOSSS Concert in Amare, The Hague.