In Conversation with Jennifer Walshe: Performing with Intelligent Machines

AbstractIn this interview, composer, performer and improviser Jennifer Walshe talks with Mark Dyer and Zubin Kanga about her work performing with machine learning algorithms and other intelligent machines. In contrast to the many articles and interviews that have largely focused on Walshe’s practice as a composer, this interview focuses on her practice as a performer integrating these technologies into her work, centring around ULTRACHUNK (2018) and IS IT COOL TO TRY HARD NOW? (2017). As well as discussing the effect machine learning technologies might have on the experimental music industry, Walshe reflects on the role of the performing human body in an era of technological proliferation.KEYWORDS: Jennifer WalsheNew disciplineinterdisciplinarymachine learning Disclosure StatementNo potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).Research Data AccessFull documentation of the interview cannot be made publicly available as participants have not consented to public sharing of these materials. Selected documentation materials cited in the article can be made available on request to researchers.Notes1 The term machine learning (ML) is used here to broadly denote a field of artificial intelligence (AI) that uses deep learning techniques to generate statistical or sample outputs based on a training data set.2 Excerpts of Jennifer Walshe's performance of ULTRACHUNK (2018) at ASSEMBLY 2018, Somerset House Studios, can be viewed here: https://www.memo.tv/works/ultrachunk.3 A publicly-available audio model of the artist’s voice, available at https://holly.plus.4 GAN (Generational Adversarial Network) is a class of machine-learning frameworks, commonly known for its application using image data to generate realistic-looking animals and human faces.5 For example, in ‘Child Soldier’ from Replica, released by Mexican Summer Studios, 2011.6 Available online here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=upPl9mZW_zw&ab_channel=Letterman.Additional informationFundingThis research was undertaken as part of Cyborg Soloists, supported by a UKRI Future Leaders Fellowship and Royal Holloway, University of London [grant number MR/T043059/1].Notes on contributorsMark DyerMark Dyer is a composer and researcher. His work explores the entanglement between borrowed material and narrative. Mark was a postdoctoral research assistant on the ‘Cyborg Soloists’ project, a UKRI Future Leaders Fellowship, at Royal Holloway, University of London. He received his PhD in music composition from the Royal Northern College of Music.Zubin KangaZubin Kanga is a pianist, composer and technologist. For over a decade, he has been at the forefront of curating and creating interdisciplinary musical programmes that seek to explore and redefine what it means to be a performer through interactions with new technologies. In 2020, Kanga was awarded a UK Research and Innovation Future Leaders Fellowship to fund a four-year music-technology research project, Cyborg Soloists, based at Royal Holloway, University of London, where he is also a senior lecturer in Musical Performance and Digital Arts. Cyborg Soloists is unlocking new possibilities in composition and performance through interactions with AI and machine learning, interactive visuals and VR, motion and biosensors and new digital instruments. His work as part of Cyborg Soloists has been featured in The New York Times, The Wire, Gramophone and New Scientist. Zubin has collaborated with many of the world's leading composers and premiered more than 150 works. He has performed at many international festivals including the BBC Proms, hcmf// (UK), Melbourne Festival (Australia), Paris Autumn Festival (France), Time of Music (Finland), Klang Festival (Denmark), November Music (Netherlands) and Modulus Festival (Canada). ‘The most original compositional voice to emerge from Ireland in the past 20 years' (The Irish Times) and ‘Wild girl of Darmstadt' (Frankfurter Rundschau).Jennifer WalsheJennifer Walshe, composer and performer was born in Dublin, Ireland) Her music has been commissioned, broadcast and performed all over the world. She has been the recipient of fellowships and prizes from the Foundation for Contemporary Arts, New York, the DAAD Berliner Künstlerprogramm, the Internationales Musikinstitut, Darmstadt and Akademie Schloss Solitude among others. Recent projects include TIME TIME TIME, an opera written in collaboration with the philosopher Timothy Morton and THE SITE OF AN INVESTIGATION, a 30-minute epic for Walshe’s voice and orchestra, commissioned by the National Symphony Orchestra of Ireland. THE SITE has been performed by Walshe and the NSO, the BBC Scottish Symphony Orchestra and the Lithuanian State Symphony Orchestra. Walshe has worked extensively with AI. ULTRACHUNK, made in collaboration with Memo Akten in 2018, features an AI-generated version of Walshe. A Late Anthology of Early Music Vol. 1: Ancient to Renaissance, her third solo album, released on Tetbind in 2020, uses AI to rework canonical works from early Western music history. Walshe is currently a professor of composition at the University of Oxford. Her work was profiled by Alex Ross in The New Yorker.