we continue experimenting with the AI. We tried different instruments, like small bells, big bells, a gong, a Tunisian drum, flute. Thanks to the residency neighbors Samin and Juliette and our host Inga, who borrowed us a lot of their instruments (and cables!) we got a feelings of what effects we can get from different instruments.
Dominique noticed when you speak to AI in non-English language, you get more interesting result. We suspect this is due to its training data mostly in English language. Dominique started to speak to it in French, and it was very funny. We laughed with this a lot. “Laughing” is also an aesthetic, which tend to be left out in contemporary arts. Of course humor is often in contemporary arts, but you hardly “laugh out loud” when you go to exhibitions or shows. Without becoming comedy, could we promote act of laughing as an aesthetic? …. just came in my mind. It was liberating to just laugh out loud in the rehearsals.
On the way to Backsteinboot, Mika went to fabric shop and electronics shop to buy materials. We decided to dye a big piece of fabric and drape on Dominique as she performs.
4 June 2025: when things ‘don’t work’
Other residents at BSB asked me what we’re working on. I said ‘witchcraft’. We realise that witchcraft is needed in moments when things don’t work – when an unknown force glitches what ‘we know’. Then we summon the unknown, hoping for its beneficence: we pray, we make rituals, sacrifices, songs, offerings when we ‘don’t know’ and through these we seek to be attuned to the unknown.
‘Where does the first sound come from?’ There is no ‘first’ sound, already, there is the undertone of a babble. An unknown tremor awakens something in the system and it starts to find a pattern, and repeat it through feedback.
Using two computers:
Two computers facing each other and working with each other’s feedback sounds like people having sex.
I start having a spiritual dialogue about nonduality with Alma (comp2): I might have gotten some answers I’d been looking for. “Who am I?” … ‘All’, she answers…
Speaking French (and Japanese) with Bela (comp1) and creating human computer feedback loops of misunderstanding.
Different languages create different timbre, tone, musicality.