For ULTRACHUNK - an AI and human vocal improvisational performance - Akten has created GRANNMA (Granular Neural Music and Audio), a neural network that Walshe has trained with the data of multiple hours of solo vocal improvisations. This interactive installation invites the public to engage with and experience its system. The voice is considered the most personal of musical instruments, betraying emotion, gender, age and class, rendering biology in sound. What does it mean to use your voice to improvise with a neural network?
Composer, performer and vocalist, Jennifer Walshe’s body of work is vast and impressive; a large number of operas and theatrical works include XXX_LIVE_NUDE_GIRLS!!!, an opera for Barbie dolls, and Die Taktik, a commission for the Junge Oper Stuttgart.
Memo Akten is an artist from Istanbul studying and working with complex systems, behaviour, algorithms and software. He received the Prix Ars Electronic Golden Nica in 2013 for his collaboration with Quayola, ‘Forms’.
ULTRACHUNK is commissioned with the generous support of the Case Foundation