Nontrivial music machine A.I: nUFO with A.A: nUFOlogy

2022.5.19
Isak Han
The infinity of sound explored through communication between humans and machines

Isak Han is an artist and experimental electronic musician who uses software programming, physical computing, and sound design. He explores the relationship between creativity based on digital technology and our bodies and society and conducts experimental performances by developing an instrument called "nUFO" that generates its own sound.

〈Nontrivial Music Machine A.I:nUFO〉 presented in this exhibition is a computer-based instrument in which electronic sound is synthesized and controlled in real-time according to the movement of the performer, leading to an intuitive and flexible interaction between performer and instrument. However, through constant contingencies, this music machine shows how it’s possible to slip from the intention to play. By breaking down boundaries between amateurs and experts through unintentional sounds and unclear ways of operation, nUFO forms a new relationship between machine and human and instrument and performer.

The ’nUFOlogy’ system installed in the exhibition space is an autonomous decision-making network sound installation that is being researched and developed with Prof. Alberto de Campo and Hannes Hoelzl. It is a kind of automatic configuration network that experiments with the environment and structure in which humans and machines interact through the process of sharing agency and negotiating and coordinating sound. Here, the audience breaks away from the method subordinate to the interface of the computer and participates in the process of physically and intuitively creating changes and parameters for the algorithm. By moving away from the perspective of an instrument, maintaining the balance of power between humans and computers as equal subjects of creation, and influencing each other beyond the concept of control, this work contemplates the post-human subject and explores its potential