Re-FREAM round #1 presentations: Jef Montes
Jef Montes (NL), hosted by Re-FREAM (INT)

Join this session to hear more about Jef Montes (NL) and his Re-FREAM project Marinero.

Fashion. Technology. Responsibility.

On Sept 9th 2020, STARTS Lighthouse pilot Re-FREAM kicks off this session with a keynote questioning our attitude to the clothes we wear and how we can rethink the systems and conditions of their production. The keynote is followed by three artist teams presenting the outcomes and prototypes realised within their residencies in the context of Re-FREAM.

Transient - Impermanent paintings
Quayola (IT)

Transient - Impermanent paintings is an audiovisual concert for two motorized pianos and two conductors in collaboration with generative algorithms. Hyper-realistic digital brushstrokes articulate endlessly on a large-scale projection as if on a real canvas. Each brushstroke is sonified with a piano note, creating polyphonic synesthetic landscapes.

The Grid: Full Festival Experience
The Grid (US/EU), Gray Area (US), Codame (US), ZERO1 (US), MUTEK.SF (US), EUNIC Silicon Valley (US), EUNIC Washington DC (US), EUNIC New York (US), Ars Electronica AIxMusic Festival (AT), STARTS, European Commission (EU), Center for Humane Technology (US), Salesforce (US)

By mobilizing artists, technologists, and policy makers from around the world, Exposure reimagines interdisciplinary and international collaboration to overcome deadlock and siloed thinking. Through 4 days of art, panels, performances, interactive experiences, talks, and workshops, Exposure works towards shaping technological development for the benefit of all. Be part of it and join in on four livestreams!

AIxLITERATURE: Poetry Is A Machine
The Grid (US/EU), Vikram Chandra (IN/US), Bryan McCann (US), Andrew Piper (CA), M Eifler (US), Clemens J. Setz (AT), Clara Blume (AT/US), Vanessa Chang (US/SG/AU)

How does the algorithmic contour the lyrical? Nearly a century ago, William Carlos Williams declared, “A poem is a small (or large) machine made out of words.” As artificial intelligence becomes a writing tool, his words take on a new resonance. Some critics of algorithmic literature decry the incursion of automation into this essentially human creative practice.

AI x MUSIC: Artificial Creativity or Enhanced Humanity
The Grid (US/EU), Christine Payne (US), Monica Dinculescu (US), Ali Nikrang (AT), Clara Blume (AT/US)

The music industry was transformed drastically over the past couple of decades. For better or worse, these developments are tied to technological advancements and a rapidly adapting consumer behavior. Tech companies are invested in a future where AI forms an indispensable part of the creative process. Recent breakthroughs are already paving the way for music that is entirely created and performed by algorithms. But does that make AI an artist?

Speculative Speculations on Art and Values

How linking the brain to the Blockchain reveals the value of human values (CQC)

Solo Exhibition III: Maurice Benayoun – Introduction to Value of Values
Maurice Benayoun (FR/HK)

Morphogenesis of Values (MOV) video reveals the stakes and objectives of the VoV project and the outcomes for the coming show in 2021. MOV is developed from VoV, transactional neuro-design art project that provokes questions of human values with relation to art, philosophy, poetry, ethics, the environment and surveillance. It resonates with how we will define human goals in a post-pandemic world.

Solo Exhibition IV: Tobias Klein – Metamorphosis or Confrontation
Tobias Klein (GE/HK)

This film is a short documentary of the solo exhibition Metamorphosis or Confrontation of the German artist Tobias Klein at the Hong Kong University Museum and Art Gallery. The documentary is structured as the exhibition in four parts with an introduction. Bones, Masks, Mutations and Forces are the chapters and provide a detailed insight into the various curatorial strategies - making the diversity in the artist's work visible.

Solo Exhibition II: Tamás Waliczky – Imaginary Cameras
Tamás Waliczky (HU/HK)

From Hong Kong to the Hungarian Pavilion at the 2019 Venice Biennale, Waliczky revisits technologies in a non-linear history of the moving image.

DïaloG
Refik Anadol (TR/US), MoBen / CityU HK

DïaloG is an urban media art installation developed by Maurice Benayoun (MoBen/CityU HK) and Refik Anadol (AnalogNative). In the public space (L’Hospitalet de Llobregat, Spain) two “living” entities face each other. They don’t look like the living beings we know. They don’t speak any language we know. They are aliens, strangers, immigrants. Facing each other they gradually mutate. They seem to react to their environment. Even more, they clearly desperately try to understand each other.

Can we do the same with less - AI in 64 Kb
Philippe Esling (FR)

This hands-on workshop for the AIxMusic Hackathon by Philippe Esling (FR) introduces techniques for lightweight AI, demonstration of embedded technologies and a 64 Kb competition for an AIxMusic hackathon project challenging the current limits of AI and inspired by the Demoscene and the 64Kb competitions.

AI Creative Agents: The Man I Love
Hervé Sellin (FR), Remi Fox (FR)

The Musical Representations team in the STMS laboratory at IRCAM is working on "cyber-human" systems. Just as cyber-physical systems create a continuity between the digital logic of computers and the physical world by capturing, modeling, and modifying it, they establish a creative continuity between machines and musicians using mathematical modeling and artificial intelligence.

Little Etudes for Piano
Elaine Chew (US/GB)

Little Etudes is a series of short piano pieces based on cardiac electrical anomalies. Aberrant electrical activity in the heart can cause the heart to beat irregularly. Abnormal heart rhythms form interesting musical patterns, which raises the question of whether all natural-sounding musical rhythms have a physiological basis.

Three Ladies Project
Georges Bloch (FR)

Billie Holiday, Édith Piaf and Elisabeth Schwarzkopf are three great ladies of music, born in 1915. Could we make them sing together? This was the subject of a performance conceived for the music festival Le pietre che cantano in L'Aquila (Italy) in 2015. Using DYCI2Lib software, the three ladies finally sing The Man I Love together. ImproteK, the earlier version of DYCI2Lib, already made it possible to intelligently link the harmony of the base material used (called "memories") to the harmonic progression of the reference song (called "scenario").

Talk: Frontiers of Music and Artificial Intelligence
IRCAM (FR)

Artificial intelligence plays an increasingly prominent role in music composition, performance, and production. How does this benefit or undermine musicians? Where are such developments taking us? Two young protagonists at the leading edge of AIxMusic will debate the limits and future directions of AIxMusic, tackling topics ranging from classic questions of AI takeover to therapeutic and gaming applications to discussions of lightweight deep AI, of uncertainty and unknown models and dimensions.

Talk: Musical Generativities (Facilitated by H.Vinet)
IRCAM (FR)

Techniques for the automatic generation of music – which have long been focused on systems ruling the score – are now being deployed at all levels of sound representation: signal, gesture, symbol, form. Sound synthesis using deep networks constitutes a radical break with conventional modelling approaches. How do composers handle these emerging possibilities?

Garden Exhibition
Kepler's Garden on the JKU campus

The Garden Exhibition on the JKU campus in Linz is dedicated to the interplay of art, research and industry/design. Selected works of art take up the metaphor of the garden playfully and in different ways.

The State of Presence - Report
FNDMT (PT)

In times of uncertainty, stay aware of the present. The new report from ThePowerHouse on the current state of the innovative ecosystem in Europe.

Materials in Space: Innovation meets tradition in flexible and smart solutions for space travel
FNDMT (PT)

The focus of this session: Traditional techniques are coming together with high end technology in Portugal, and are attracting interest from space agencies and futurists.