Creative Question Challenge: Can unheard signals inspire change?
Siobhán McDonald (IE), Chris Bean (IE), Adriaan Eeckels (BE)

'Let us finish what we started'. This is how the UN introduces its first Sustainable Development Goal - to end poverty in all forms and dimensions by 2030. The 17 Sustainable Development Goals and their 169 targets have been described as a sprawling, misconceived mess of grandiose intentions. The title of the development agenda itself - 'Transforming our World' - oozes utopian ambition. It was adopted by 193 nations in 2015. Five years later and with ten years left, how do you think our world will transform?

AI x Music Festival: Bot Bop Musical creation and innovation with AI
Andrew Claes (BE) and Dago Sondervan (NL)

Musical phrases are fed in real-time to a live coded machine learning model. The emerging virtual agent reacts and is again reacted to, creating an organic feedback loop. Utilising improvisational, instant composing and algorithmic musical techniques, listen to the duo becoming a trio during the course of this performance.

Genetic Biotech through the Eyes of Artists

BOZAR presents a talk on genetic modification, featuring Sandra Lorenzi (FR), Kuang-Yi Ku (TW), Christophe De Jaeger (BE), and 2 scientists from the Vlaams Instituut voor Biotechnologie – VIB. The talk will be preceded by a video streaming of a guided tour in the VIB facilities in Gent (BE), with Sandra Lorenzi (FR – artist of the Studiotopia programme), Kuang-Yi Ku (TW – artist of the Studiotopia programme), Sofie Bekaert (BE – VIB) and VIB scientists Roosmarijn Vandenbroucke and Sofie Goormachtig, presenting their current research.

Q&A with Man & Wah

Moderated by independent curator and creative director working in the field of digital/new media arts, Lubi Thomas (AU/UK), this live Q&A event will explore the creative practice and process of artists Man & Wah. Covering topics of nature, the cosmos, information and interdisciplinary artistic practice, Man & Wah will respond to live questions alongside a discussion with Lubi about their narrative video piece, CELESTON, and physical exhibition at Museum of Brisbane.

Man & Wah: Artist Studio Profile

Working within the breadth of nature and the cosmos, the Marco and Micro, Man & Wah (AU) produce lush and alluring photographic, moving image, digital and installation based works. Collaborating with a diverse range of people on projects across the globe, they explore the depths of place through local flora; ultimately illuminating synergies between the limits of the man-made and vastness of natural systems and structures. This video follows the artists’ creative process and explores the places they forage for inspiration and meaning. Created in collaboration with photographer and filmmaker Charlie Hillhouse (AU), this studio profile gives insight into the forces that drive Man & Wah to continue to compel audiences to reflect on the phenomenal complexity of plants and the endless possibilities of interconnectedness.

Keynote Lecture: Tree Conservation and Genetics
Victoria Sork, UCLA Dean of Life Sciences, Director of Mildred E. Mathias Botanical Gardens

Live Program of Telluric Vibrations, UCLA Botanical Gardens – Los Angeles

Enjoy the extensive live Program of Telluric Vibrations, UCLA Botanical Gardens – Los Angeles

Art and Nanotechnology by Marcel Weber
gnration (PT) and INL – International Iberian Nanotechnology Institute (PT / EU)

For its Ars Electronica Garden, gnration will present a virtual tour of The Invention of Sense, by German artist Marcel Weber.

Art and Nanotechnology - Marcel Weber
gnration (PT) and INL – International Iberian Nanotechnology Institute (PT / EU)

For its Ars Electronica Garden, gnration will present a virtual tour of The Invention of Sense, by German artist Marcel Weber.

Acte de Fe
Marc Vilajuana, Adrià Grandia, Carlos Martorell

Act of faith (Acte de Fe) is an exploration of our relationship with technology, its similarities with the one we have with religion, the tools involved in both processes, and its impact on us and in our sacred/private space. Mise-en-scène will consist in a liturgy performed by Marc Vilajuana (voice, effects, hand drum), Adrià Grandia (acoustic and MIDI hurdy-gurdy, modular synth, laptop, aerophones), Carlos Martorell (coding, synths, motion sensors, artiphon) and a real-time reactive AI trained with religious scores.

Interdependence with Richie Hawtin: AI for humans
Holly Herndon, Matt Dryhust

In this discussion we explode the false binary of humans and machines in the music making process, explore ways that AI systems could actually help get more humans paid rather than displace them, and discuss the necessity of artists having a seat at the table in the process of AI tool development.

Dance the distance
Ariella Vidach (IT), Claudio Prati (CH), Paolo Solcia (CH), Riccardo Santalucia (IT), Sebastiano Barbieri (IT), Francesco Luzzana (IT), Giovanni Landi (IT)

Live Guided Tour in a Dance Virtual Studio. MEET’s second project Dance the distance is a live guided tour through a virtual dance studio. Participants as avatars will be able to meet the virtual dancers and join an open rehearsal for a VR dance performance in progress.

Meet the Media Guru
William Myers (US/NL)

Within its Meet the Media Guru format, MEET presents a talk by William Myers about the emerging practice of integrating biological processes into art and digital creativity. An exhibition curator and lecturer based in Amsterdam (NL), Myers is the author of two widely acclaimed books about the intersections of design, art, and science: Biodesign and BioArt.

CNMAT ODOT
John MacCallum(USA), Jeff Lubow (USA) 

In this workshop, we will provide a brief, practical introduction to odot, a dynamic, multi-paradigm programming environment that operates on Open Sound Control. Developed at CNMAT beginning in 2007, odot has evolved into a powerful and robust suite of tools useful in a variety of contexts, from gesture signal processing to computer-aided composition. During this workshop, we will discuss the current state of the package and the future of the project.

The QuBits VR Space
Jon Kulpa

Jon Kulpa is available to host a live online demonstration/performance of QuBits VR. The QuBits project is a virtual reality (VR) environment built by the composer that offers an expanded medium for musical experience with integrated space and visuals.  The environment was designed to explore a musical aesthetic valuing sound mass, spatial sound, evolving sound, and algorithmically generated sonic structures.  The user of the VR system plays a key role in shaping these musical elements.  The user first discovers what behaviors are possible through exploration and chance encounters.  They can then shape each discovered behavior with nuance if they choose.  The system provides a unique experience each time it is run.  The sounds are a mix of real world sampled sound, granular synthesis, and real-time generated synthetic sound.

Performance of CORAIL
Edmund Campion

There is no pre-defined score for CORAIL (CORAL). CORAIL is a software environment that performs audio analysis of an incoming live signal that generates and organizes sound through the computer and the CORAIL algorithms. Persistence inside any one environment causes the program to move toward greater sound generation and machine autonomy.

ORCHIDEA with Composer and Lead Researcher at CNMAT
Carmine Cella

Carmine Cella is available to host a live online demonstration/workshop for ORCHIDEA, a framework for static and dynamic computer-assisted music orchestration. Orchestration consists largely of choosing combinations of sounds, instruments, and timbres that support the narrative of a piece of music. The ORCHIDEA project assists composers during the orchestration process by automatically searching for the best combinations of orchestral sounds to match a target sound, after embedding it in a high-dimensional feature space.

ALICE, ALICES UNCHAINED, and THE FLOWER MATRIX
Edmund Campion and Claudia Hart

ALICE, ALICES UNCHAINED, and THE FLOWER MATRIX is a long-term collaborative project between media artist Claudia Hart and composer Edmund Campion (CNMAT). Since 2013, they have collaborated on the ALICES project, a series of artworks, loosely connected to Alice in Wonderland, and appearing through the years as a series of pieces that migrate from performance-based multi-media theatre, video, gallery installations, to virtual reality environments. This film documents the history of the on-going project with excerpts from several of the works along with interviews with the artists and collaborators.

Live Performances in occasion of the AIxMusic Opening ceremony
Edmund Campion, CORAIL with Steve Adams of the Rova Saxophone Quartet, and Andrew Blanton, WAVEGUIDE, Claudia Hart, Edmund Campion

Edmund Campion, CORAIL with Steve Adams of the Rova Saxophone Quartet, and Andrew Blanton, WAVEGUIDE, Claudia Hart, Edmund Campion WAVEGUIDE - 2017 - percussion, distributed audio and electronics: Music composition and performance by Andrew Blanton  Text by Yvette Granata  Composition and software by Andrew Blanton  Special thanks to Neal Riley for technical support.  CORAIL - version 2020 - improvising saxophonist and interactive computer system: Composition and computer environment design by Edmund Campion, Director, CNMAT  Tenor Saxophone by Steve Adams  Software contributions by Manuel Poletti, Matthew Wright, Edmund Campion (and a host of others)  This concert is being streamed live from the Center for New Music and Audio Technologies (CNMAT) and made possible by CNMAT Researcher and Technical Director, Jeremy Wagner

Scientific papers

Paper authors: It starts with an inverted map. Chronicle of an imaginary and literal navigation through the southern tip of America. By Paula López Wood "Roots and inorganic forces, tectonic-climate interaction: its meaning in the evolution of the landscape and the habitability of the territory " By Gerd Sielfeld Art, science and society from a critical museology. THE OPEN LANDSCAPE BEHIND THE BORDERS By Alessandra Burotto Tarky Remain or Return: The Ancestral Communities of Magallanes from Hornos Island By Alfredo Prieto