Eine Ringvorlesung des Instituts für Theaterwissenschaft der Freien Universität Berlin

Post-Benjamin Pneumatic Cyborg: Musicking with Interactive AI Wearable Instruments

• mit Dr. Viola Yip
  Hochschule der Künste Bern
  Dieser Beitrag findet in englischer Sprache statt.

When AI is being discussed these days in the field of robotics, reproductivity and calculation of precise results, integratability in market capitalist systems, are often the important concerns. The motion of human beings and the hyper-precise execution of human-related movement, form an important topos in robotics research, medicine, space technology and many other domains. Yet, the emergent qualities of other-than-human moving systems and the emergent forms of movement between human and machine are rarely explored.

This lecture springs from my artistic research in which I develop wearable inflatable robotics as my new musical instrument. The instrument will learn my movements and generate interactive movements and sounds via machine learning. Drawing on Pickering’s “dance of agency” (2010) and Barad’s “intra-action” (2007), as well as putting Benjamin’s seminal question of Mechanical Reproduction of the Work of Art (1935) in parallel, I aim to examine AI-generated robotic movements in pneumatic cyborg performances through the lens of cosmotechnic perspective (Hui 2017), and how the new nuances are manifested through a flexible instrument, air and gravity, with the goal of expanding the current discourse in embodied AI.

Dr. Viola Yip is a composer-performer, sound artist and instrument builder based in Berlin. Her instruments and performances have been presented by places such as at Harvard University, CCRMA, CNMAT, Cycling ‘74 Expo, Hong Kong Arts Center, Akademie der Künste Berlin, Maerzmusik festival, University of Huddersfield, Arter Museum, Serralves Museum Porto and Pinakothek der Moderne München. She currently serves as a faculty in the Sound Arts Department at Hochschule der Künste Bern.