Generative art piece by SIAT professor Philippe Pasquier on display in Istanbul gallery exhibition

School of Interactive Arts & Technology (SIAT) professor Philippe Pasquier’s generative art piece Autolume Mzton is currently on exhibition at the Akbank Sanat Gallery in Istanbul, Turkey as part of the Dystopia Sound Art Festival.

Autolume Mzton is an autonomous live music visualizer that is the result of Pasquier’s research in the creative use of artificial intelligence (AI).

Sound and audio features in the music visualizer’s soundtrack guide the AI system to select and display images from a collection of public domain pictures of modern and abstract paintings. The result is a custom-trained cinematic music video and generative art piece that independently and autonomously produces art conditioned through sound.

The Akbank Sanat Gallery exhibition where Autolum Mzton is on display aims to bring sound art to international audiences while also exploring the theme of dystopia, especially through the lens of the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic.

According to Pasquier, the sensation of dystopia is reflected in his art piece through its autonomous nature. Since the content is generated through AI and algorithmic means, the human creator is distanced from the content production of the music visualizer giving it an a-human, or post-human, autonomy.

“The dynamic of the network production is reminiscent of cell cultures and biological growth,” explains Pasquier of Autolume.

The art piece, under the artistic direction of Pasquier, features music by robonom, visual programming and generation by SIAT MSc student Jonas Kraasch, and sound engineering and video editing by Metacreation Lab research assistant Kristian Voveris.

The Dystopia Sound Art Festival will be running until June 15, 2021.

Learn more about Philippe Pasquier’s research and projects here.