Prestidigitation integrates a critical approach to machine learning embedded within a technical assemblage encompassing performer, instruments, microphone, computer, loudspeaker, and audience. The creative process balances the “material engagement” of composer and performer with computer improvisation and embodied spatial sound synthesis in a “dance of agency” between human and non-human actors. The results offer a unique juxtaposition of a fully composed score with passages of spatially situated improvisation made possible through creative engagement with AI. The work is scored for a custom-built percussion setup and specialized 3D microphone and loudspeaker, all of which are intimately integrated in the conception of the work. Collectively these tools perform three interacting machine learning tasks: first, a k-nearest neighbor (k-NN) algorithm is used to select short samples from a prerecorded corpus of percussion, performed and recorded by Echardour and Einbond, in a process of live audio mosaicking. Second, a Gaussian mixture model (GMM) associates each of these short samples with a database of 3D radiation patterns derived from acoustic instruments that are then used to diffuse the samples spatially. And third, an audio oracle (AO) models the sequence of these samples in time. This serves as training data for computer improvisation by connecting samples based both on timbral and contextual similarity.
Type of submission
Accepted submissions will be programmed at AIMC 2024 in one of three performances, please indicate which Performance(s) your submission is suitable for:
Performance 1, a concert at the Wolfson College auditorium, will feature 1-4 professional instrumental players, optional live or fixed electronics and video.
I would like to request that AIMC provide one professional percussion performer
I will provide the technical equipment required to perform the work, including the em64 Eigenmike and IKO icosahedral loudspeaker array, which can be borrowed in-kind from City, University of London
Technical/Stage Requirements
Instrumentation: solo percussion (all items provided by the percussionist)
11 chimes and shakers of contrasting materials mounted on a circular frame (see diagram in score)
frame drum: bodhran, tar, or similar drum with natural skin and diameter ca. 40 cm
superball mallet with rattan handle
rute mallet made of bundled wood or plant fibers
metal thimble
Technical Setup (all items provided by the composer)
Eigenmike 32-channel or 64-channel microphone array (em32 or em64)
IKO 20-channel icosahedral loudspeaker array
RME Digiface Dante audio interface
MacBook Pro laptop computer with Max 8.3 (minimum software version) and packages Spat5 and MuBu for Max
Program Notes
AI is the magic of the present. In our daily rituals we ask the computer our inner questions and respond to its recommendations. Computer music algorithms with names like the “oracle” are summoned by performers like shamans. In Prestidigitation, written in collaboration with percussionist Maxime Echardour, the performer enters a darkened stage as a spotlight reveals an empty frame. One by one, he pulls from the dark an array of objects and materials of far-flung origins—seashells, nutshells, bells, chimes—and assembles them into a growing sculptural installation. He brings each object to life like a puppeteer, examining its delicate texture around a 3D microphone. He completes the sculpture with a frame drum with which he brings together the entire assemblage into composite gestures of growing density. Both minute and explosive, the sounds are captured and projected to the listeners in 3D, situating them in the midst of the micro-theater. The totemic loudspeaker in the middle of the room at first amplifies the performers’ gestures, then gradually extends them into improvisations, blurring the boundary between the real and the virtual. From within the detailed score, the performer responds with brief improvisatory passages if his own, to which the loudspeaker multiplies its unpredictable feedback. The ritual closes as the percussionist leaves the stage and the loudspeaker takes over with a final solo improvisation, but the oracle’s answers are inconclusive.
Media
1 to 5 high-resolution images or photographs in .jpg format
One or both from the following:
video or audio documentation of the performance
notated score in PDF format
Please see the attached files below, or access them at the following links:
The work was produced for the project “Permeable Interdisciplinary: Algorithmic Composition, Subverted,” part of the research program Music and Artificial Intelligence: Building Critical Interdisciplinary Studies (MusAI), led by Prof. Georgina Born and funded by the Advanced Grants scheme of the European Research Council (grant agreement 101019164).
Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License (CC-BY 4.0)
