FAGGOT*S
FAGGOT*S is a theatrical adaptation of the queer cult classic e Faggots and eir Friends Between Revolutions by Larry Mitchell and Ned Asta. e performance explores the rami cations of cyborg faggotries in the era of arti cial intelligence. is solo act, performed by the drag artist Hassandra, exists outside of time, somewhere between the vibrant New York of the Stonewall riots and the dark depths of Berlin’s darkrooms. e co-creators of the piece, Hadrien Daigneault-Roy and Sascha Cowan, collaborated with experimental composer Luke Nickel to intertwine sound art with drag.
FAGGOT*S (2024)
from premiere performance at Hosek Gallery in Berlin (70:00) with the generous support of the Canada Council for the Arts
photo
Transcribing
An exploration of the process of transcribing made into a performance. is piece has multiple versions: a duet where performers transcribe the same audio at the same time; and a solo version where a single performer creates multiple layers of audio and video as they continually rewind the bu er. Each version of the performance uses new source material, and can be layered with accompanying background music.
Transcribing (2017-2024)
le : video stills from solo version performed at Q-O2 (20:00) right: still from duo version recorded at Bath Spa University Open Scores Lab (10:00) shown at Q-O2 in Brussels, Belgium, and in London England broadcast on BBC radio
Supreme Chains
On the surface, Supreme Chains demonstrates a simple metaphorical relationship: height = pitch. Simulated roller coasters become choreographies that cue a string quartet to perform gentle oscillations and ululations. ese 1:1 relationships are juxtaposed with noisy techno and vast ambient sonic spaces. Each player is linked to a channel of video (here shown as panels in a single projection) that shows a combination of simulated roller coasters, photogrammetric captures of each player’s instrument and home environments, as well as 3D animated camera paths travelling through desolate landscapes. A text describing a speculative roller coaster is threaded through the piece.
Supreme Chains (2024)
video stills from 3D-animated video, performance event featuring Quatuor Bozzini String Quartet (23:10)
Semaine Du Neuf, Montreal, Canada, March 2024 with the generous support of the Canada Council for the Arts
Roller Coaster Lore
In a smoggy near-future Berlin, AI has partially taken over the Bundestag, Spreepark is a collectively-run anarchist theme park, and consciousness might be arising in gasses found in the city’s iconic pink and blue pipes. is collaborative performance created with Weston Olencki weeaves together music, video, simulated roller coasters, and speculative ction. During the performance, Nickel and Olencki are each anked by portrait-mode monitors, with two steel beams extending between them. ese steel beams are clad with small motors, which are controlled via data passing between the two performers’ laptops. Nickel performs on an analogue synthesizer and Olencki on various ampli ed found objects, and both participate in various electronic sound processes.
Roller Coaster Lore (2024)
photo from premiere performance at KM28 in Berlin (45:00) with the generous support of Initiativ Neue Musik
Latent Lip Sync
e face becomes a controller for the latent space of a machine learning model, a ecting both sound and image. At the same time, drag makeup prevents computer vision from functioning accurately, presenting a tension between perception, control and queerness. e video enacts a kind of inverse lip sync where the soundless mouth becomes the site of production rather than that of imitation.
Latent Lip Sync (2023)
le : video stills from video with 2-channel sound (5:00) right: still from audiovisual performance (8:00)
shown at Acid Raum Berlin, Nov 2023 and Wide Open Berlin, Jan 2024 with the generous support of the Canada Council for the Arts
Passages Into a Weightless Medium
is augmented reality artwork created in collaboration with dancer Freya Olafson considers ags as symbols — both on earth and the moon — and documents transmissions between the collaborating artists over a year of research. 2D imagery, 3D models and AI-collaborative sound depict ghostly dualities: moon/earth, nature/industry, bodies/avatars, digital/real, sculpture/debris. Forms of presentation include an augmented reality installation as well as short videos and a 60-page speculative- ction novella co-written with GPT-J.
Presentation: April - June 2023,
Passages Into a Weightlesss Medium (2023) screenshot from augmented reality installation
Translunar Formations, Curated and produced by Madi Piller, Artistic Director of PIX FILM Collective and SystemKollectiv (Litto / Daniela Weiss and Jascha Ehrenreich) with e Arti cial Museum, Toronto, Canada
“In an age where the worlds of art and science continuously collide, scholars and storytellers alike are increasingly using Arti cial Intelligence (AI) to analyze and represent their internal worlds. As AI becomes further enmeshed in the everyday experience of humans and other sentiences across the planet, questions begin to arise concerning ethical representation of the self and other, technological anthropomorphism, and artistic expression. Our dialogue contains several modalities: text, poetry, artistic thought experiments, speculative compositions and images. Our aim is not to provide answers to these ever-accelerating questions about AI, but to open up and expose the grooves of various narratives surrounding AI by engaging with experimentation, dialogue, and speculation as modes of discovery. Each section of the text begins with a poetic provocation by S.J Abiodun, and continues on with an exchange between the two authors, uidly leaping between our individual and collective knowledge as researchers, artists, and interdisciplinarians.”
Art_ificial intelligence: dreams, data, and neuroaesthetics in the age of AI
A yearlong dialogic exchange between myself and neuroscientist/artist S. J. Abiodun, resulting in a published piece of experimental writing and speculative texts.
Art_i cial intelligence: dreams, data, and neuroaesthetics in the age of AI (2023) research article, speculative texts, 8000 words
curated by Buddhika Bellana as part of a SPECIAL ISSUE – Advances in neuroaesthetics: Narratives and art as windows into the mind and brain in the Journal of Comparative Literature, Taylor and Francis (Autumn 2024) with the generous support of the Canada Council for the Arts