ISMIR 2021

Video performance with The Seals for the International Society for Music Retrieval Conference. November 12, 2021.

The Seals networked ensemble performance for ISMIR is a composite view of our global collectives’ live performance with creative AI assisted visuals. We regard telematic music technologies, not only as means by which our live online networked performances can be accessed but also, as a chance-agent providing a completely individualized ephemeral experience. During our ISMIR performance we improvised over AI created content compiled and arranged into pieces using our respective audio/visual instruments. These include: 1) Custom made theramins made and played by Sofy Yuditskaya and other band mates, 2) Peeps Music Box s8jfou played by Margaret Schedel, 3) Harp, Guitar+pedals played by Sophia Sun, 4) Voice+gesture controlled granulator, Kalimba+spectral processing & electronics sung/played by Susie Green, and 5) preprocessed visuals by Sofy Yuditskaya using live aquarium camera feeds collected and mixed by Ria Rajan and “Seal Vision” (MOG2 and U^2-Net to simulate the multi-focal attention seals may give to moving objects, as well as motionmask.fs in VDMX1.) During this our performance we each recorded our view over zoom through our distinct tech stacks & systems spanning NY NY, Miami Fl, San Diego CA & Pune India. This edited version stitches together a strange loop - a simultaneous observation of both individuated experiences and collective concurrence.