SOUND MACHINES

Holly Herndon and Mat Dryhursts _Play from Memory_ (2024) is a series of machine-generated works informed by Gunild Keetman and Carl Orffs Schulwerk, a set of music education methods and imitation games for children developed in the 1920s. Orff and Keetman hoped to teach children to improvise freely from memory, training them with instructions in the form of text prompts, mnemonic games, and graphic symbols. Herndon and Dryhurst created sixteen new machine learning models that produce fantastical orchestral / choral sounds and imagery of imaginary instruments, performances, and lessons. _Play from Memory_ highlights striking similarities between the ways in which Orff and Keetman aspired for children to learn music, and how we train machines to learn music today.

Play from Memory #4

American Artist and Tommy Martinez have produced a new generative interface that remixes a recording of their sound piece _Integrity Protocol/Lower Limb Lecture_ (2023/24). Viewers can explore and create new sonic textures by experimenting with the custom interface. The interface is based on an audiovisual work composed using synthesizers and poetic speech, centering on a disembodied voice American Artists own that evokes an empty personhood, or the lowest and least counted in society. Text captions scroll against a blue void, suggesting the blue screen of death appearing during a system crash. Credits: Tommy Martinez - Music and Web Programming American Artist - Lyrics and Video Ryan Howe - Recording and Mixing Kevin Ramsay - Mastering

Integrity Protocol / Lower Limb Lecture #4

crystalline work

john gerrard has built a practice developing simulation as a language and material, using this mode to examine issues related to energy, consumption, and environmental exploitation. _crystalline work (arctic)_ features a prismatic virtual robot performing upon a barren platform at the Arctic North Pole. Seen from above, the robot enacts an ice-generation algorithm to create crystal bar lattices that create a unique, dynamic, tokenised 3D Web Graphic Library (WebGL) art piece documenting that solar moment. The lattices in _crystalline work_ form archetypes masks, solar crosses, mandalas, stars, trees, and mycelium, amongst others which generatively emerge from the algorithms logic. Embedded in each work is a 4,000-pixel image file of the generated archetype, which can be dynamically exported and locally pigment printed on paper at 1m x 1m to the artist's specifications. Also embedded in each work is a 3D model of the unique crystal array, which can be exported for usage in 3D prints or virtual world-building.

crystalline work (arctic) 16.1.3.1

Feral File  In/Visible

In Blonde Braids Study II, I examine the ways in which a text-to-image algorithm  Midjourney (v4)  renders a portrait of Black identical twins adorned with blonde braids. The resulting image underscores significant gaps in the training data, which inevitably precipitates a flattened representation of the Black identity outlined in the text prompt. Instead, the algorithm generates an interpretation that evokes the semblance of fraternal twins, their hair styled in blonde, permed waves.  Minne Atairu

Blonde Braids Study II #13

Proof of Spirit  Act II is the second installment of my longitudinal art exploration on the concept of she via the Proof of Spirit series, which was first unveiled at La Biennale di Venezia 2022. she is characterized by intuitively drawn, fluid lines that flow in and out of each other, forming a nexus of distinct patterns, discernible beings, hidden motifs, and embedded symbols. The style borrows its name and philosophy from the Yoruba concept of she, which represents the life energy that animates all that exists, and that connects us all as one.

I began the series by creating 1,024 handmade she drawings on paper, which were scanned and then used as the dataset for training a machine learning algorithm. This was done to investigate a number of different questions, principally whether or not the machine could be imbued with the spiritual intelligence of she and then create work in my likeness. A selection of the initial results of the training were then exhibited at The Ghana Pavilion of La Biennale, via an installation of a robotic arm, which drew the machine learning interpretations of she live, every single day during the course of the exhibition.

Proof of Spirit  Act II also features a curated set of the first results of the ML training, and will be the first time people can actually digitally collect work from the she series, which began in 2014. It serves as a significant milestone for the ongoing project, as it makes its way into the cryptoverse. And as she keeps evolving as a visual language and body of work investigating the concepts of change and oneness, expect it to continue its metamorphosis as it absorbs, reconstitutes, and reimagines all that flows through it.  Afroscope

Proof of Spirit  Act II #7

Play from Memory #20

Upending traditional roles of player and played, Danielle Brathwaite-Shirleys _CANCEL YOURSELF_ (2024) is a multisensory, interactive game asking players to decide how they would like to cancel themselves. A set of accompanying posters poses these questions in graphic form. By turns biting and humorous, the game allows participants to find their own path amid social pressure, cultural tension, and difficult choices. _CANCEL YOURSELF_ is set to an ambient score: Listen hard. Dont let the sound wash over you.

CANCEL YOURSELF #20

In _PAYPHONE_ (2024), 0xDEAFBEEF considers phone cards as an early form of tokenized communication in relation to contemporary blockchain ledger systems. Phone cards once circulated via an active collectible market, and have even doubled as currency; they employed technologies for loading, tracking, and spending value. _PAYPHONE_ features uniquely generated phone card tokens, which will be updated with sound pieces based on a live call-and-response performance by the artist. An edition of physical telephone tokens, created from hand-forged and laser-cut iron, accompany the work. 0xDEAFBEEFS call-and-response performance will be live for participation and viewing here: [https://payphone.deafbeef.com/](https://payphone.deafbeef.com/).

PAYPHONE #20

Integrity Protocol / Lower Limb Lecture #20

crystalline work (arctic) 18.1.1.1

crystalline work (arctic) 19.1.1.1

Artists have been working with code since the 1960s, and within that time frame, code has evolved from languages written by engineers to run on room-sized computers to artist-created coding languages running inside a web browser. In 2021, artists are writing code in many languages and environments; each programming language is like a different material to work with. Social Codes is an exhibition of software art, also called generative art. The work comprises code written by artists to create visual experiences. Some works in the exhibition relate to the visual histories of drawing, painting, animation, and video, but all of it is native digital art, in that each artwork is a performance of code choreographed by the artist. Casey Reas

Feral File  Social Codes

Saskia Freeke has created new coded visuals every day since January 2015, posting these &ldquo;dailies&rdquo; online as a kind of public sketchbook. Her &ldquo;enchanting luxuriance&rdquo; software brings some of the ideas explored through this daily practice together into a refined world of abstracted interfaces. As the viewer watches, containers of geometric grids float slowly upward, each one obstructing others from view. As the individual elements vie for our attention, each grid conforms to its container while pulsing with vibrant color gradations.

enchanting luxuriance #45

A 1923 wall mount telephone rings. A synthesized voice reads a translated excerpt from Aristotle's "On the Soul." This editioned video connects early communication networks with classical philosophy and artificial intelligence.

Vox Anima #81

As the first survey organized by an American museum of the leading artists engaged with blockchains, Peer to Peer is an online exhibition and fundraiser that stages an exchange between 13 artists and their historical peers in the Buffalo AKGs collection of modern and contemporary art. It presents works produced with a variety of technologies, from Artificial Intelligence to 3D modeling, and ranging in format from videos and GIFs to PDFs, websites, software applications, and smart contracts. While technologically experimental, the works also speak toand transformthemes explored by artists over the last two centuries. The exhibition therefore celebrates both the continued relevance of the historical peers and the contributions of the new peers to arts expanding network of ideas.  Tina Rivers Ryan 

Feral File  Peer to Peer

Metaverse Landscape 1: Decentraland Parcel -81, -17 #71

Ethereum Name Service (ENS) domains are secure domain names for the decentralized world. ENS domains provide a way for users to map human readable names to blockchain and non-blockchain resources, like Ethereum addresses, IPFS hashes, or website URLs. ENS domains can be bought and sold on secondary markets.

NameWrapper

yoko-ono.eth

OpenSea Shared Storefront

Unsupervised  Machine Hallucinations  MoMA Dreams is a series of algorithmic AI data paintings showcasing Refik Anadols unique collaboration with machine learning at the intersection of technology and aesthetics. Each image in the series displays a cluster of chosen dream sequences, as the artist goes through serendipitous allusions to modern visual expressions in the machine-mind.

Collectors who acquire three artworks from the Dreams series as of December 1, 2021 will receive archival prints of their images shipped from the artists studio in early 2022. The prints will be 22" high and 12.4" wide.