Aura Machine Live

AURA MACHINE LIVE is an audiovisual performance from Vicky Clarke, during her artist residency at NOVARS, University of Manchester, exploring machine learning and musique concrete.

A sound object has an aura. Can a machine produce an aura?

Incorporating live sound sculpture, DIY (Do It Yourself) interfaces, modular and machine learning, the piece explores what happens to the sound object when processed by a neural network.

Taking the listener on a journey through transmutational states, the piece begins with the concrete training data, original source material including manchester mill spaces, machines, materials and noise to a transmutational training state and finally a latent space exploration of purely generated AI material.

These AI generated forms are trained on a dataset of ancient alchemical – techno-mystical symbols, made physical in steel and neon sculpture, and form the live audio reactive visuals as developed/performed by Sean Clarke. Neural models used are StyleGAN2, NLP for text/voice and PRiSMSampleRNN.

Visuals feature Vicky’s AURA MACHINE icons are based on a graphical symbolic system representing the sound object in latent space.

An Audiovisual film has been produced for the Live recording for FACTmag Patch Notes series, 180 Studios, London.