A Stochastic City Philip Liu
경우의 도시
Theater 1, Asia Culture Center, Gwangju, KR. 2024
Audiovisual Performance. 8.2ch 3D audio, 2ch video
Dance, Live Electronics, Live Visual, and AI Agents
(Learned Heuristic A*, Symbolic Music Generator-Accompanist)
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pic. Liu plays live electronics at the performance
In his seminal work The Age of Spiritual Machines, Ray Kurzweil postulates that biological intelligence will inevitably be outstripped by artificial intelligence, and that the two will ultimately merge. Building upon this premise, certain astrobiologists have advanced the radical proposition that any advanced extraterrestrial civilizations we may encounter would necessarily be machine civilizations.
Indeed, our intelligence is gradually being supplanted by mechanical intelligence. This is not merely the realm of science fiction that depicts blatant artificial muscle implantation or mechanical brain modifications. Contemporary devices such as smartphones, automobiles, and navigation systems, despite existing physically outside the human body, function as if they were neurological, and in this process, we are relinquishing corresponding biological capacities, or paying tribute, to machines. Among contemporary individuals who are not geographical specialists, how many can instantaneously identify cardinal directions nowadays?
Speculating on the potential role of art in this context, our performance piece endeavors to illustrate the "human affected by machine" through the integration of electronic music, procedural visuals, and dance. Diverging from the conventional approach wherein well-made AI agents ceaselessly emulate humans, we have instead let the dancers be influenced by machines in their style of movements and forced them to follow trajectories calculated from learned heuristic A* algorithms, which robots rely on when pathfinding. Alongside the dancers, a procedurally generated, audio-reactive, futuristic urban landscape and soundscape are rendered. Notably, the audio pattern generation is highly automated, using a symbolic music generation AI, or in other words, a machine accompanist that reacts to the rhythm, dynamics, and pitch that the live electronics player (Liu himself) emits. Essentially, every audiovisual element including the choreography of this work is substantially dependent, either practically or conceptually, on the intrinsic nature of machines.
Liu intended to imagine a stochastic city of the future, where binaries determine human behaviors. Through this, he questions the ontology of free will: would there be consequences if it migrates from the continuous voltage in a brain to discrete voltages in a circuit? Just as the dawn of the 21st century was imagined by 19th century artists, he believes that imagining futures holds value per se, just as we enjoy literature of "retro-futurism" and "-punk." In this context, he hopes this work to be called art futures and AI-punk, imagining a future with the deficiencies that current machines (and humans) have.
pic. A Map of Speculative Design, Futures Study, Art Future, and others. Credit: Eliott Montgomery
