Created by Guy Ben-Ary, Nathan Thompson, Darren Moore, Andrew Fitch and Stuart Hodgetts, Music for Surrogate Performer explores the notion of preserving a performer’s legacy after their passing. In doing so, it asks: can the essence of the original performer be retained if the person is no longer physically present?
Premiering in the 2023 Venice Biennale, Music for Surrogate Performer is a living, bioengineered musical entity that utilises neural networks to improvise live performances and serve as a proxy for the late and legendary Alvin Lucier, a pioneering composer of the 20th century.
It builds upon Lucier’s historical work, Music for Solo Performer (1965), one that explored the relationship between brainwave activity and sound generation in a temporally responsive sonic event.
The original piece captured the alpha waves produced by Lucier’s ‘relaxed’ brain, which were then amplified and fed into a network of resonant percussive instruments. In it, Lucier emphasised the cognitive activity of the performer as a central element to composition and challenged the traditional glorification of the performer’s physical prowess by shifting the focus to their actual...
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