Choreomata: Performance and Performativity after AI

Is artificial intelligence (AI) becoming more and more expressive, or is human thought adopting more and more structures from computation? What does it mean to perform oneself through AI, or to construct one’s subjectivity through AI? How does AI continue to complicate what it means to have a body? Has the golden age of AI, especially with regards to creative applications, already ended?

Choreomata: Performance and Performativity after AI is a book about performance and performativity, but more specifically, it is a book about the performance of artificiality and the performance of intelligence. Both humans and human-designed computational forces are thoroughly engaged in an entangled, mutual performance of AI. Choreomata spins up a latticework of interdisciplinary thought, pairing theoretical inquiry from philosophy, information theory, and computer science with practical case studies from visual art, dance, music, and social theory.

Through cross-disciplinary proportions and a diverse roster of contributors, this book contains insights for computer scientists, social scientists, industry professionals, artists, and beyond.

Roberto Alonso Trillo is a musician and researcher based in Hong Kong, where he works as an Assistant Professor at the Hong Kong Baptist University. His practice explores the connections between different artistic disciplines, from dance and music to video art and interactive sound installations. His recent work examines networked hybrid music practices endemic to a world increasingly mediated by AI and machine learning. His multipronged practice-based and -led research, operating at the intersection between philosophy, sociology, and cultural studies, spans areas as diverse as a post-structuralist reconsideration of musical workhood and authorship, technologically enhanced string pedagogy, gesture analysis, and interface development.

Roberto is the author of Death and (Re)Birth of J. S. Bach (Routledge) and has published in journals such as Leonardo, Organised Sound, and Music Education Research. He is a co-founder, with his colleague Peter AC Nelson, of the MetaCreativity Lab at Hong Kong Baptist University. His long-time partnership with Marek Poliks – DisintegratorAI – has led to the publication of several CDs, journal articles, and the exhibition of interactive artworks in international venues.

Marek Poliks is an artist, engineer, and theorist based in Minneapolis, Minnesota. He works with machine learning as applied to sound, digital media, robotics, and sculpture.

Marek leads technology at the design firm Polytope, where he builds interactive infrastructure for clients like the Dubai Future Foundation. His long-time partnership with Roberto Alonso – DisintegratorAI – has led to CDs for NEOS and Creotz Ediciones, articles for Leonardo and Organised Sound, a GAN-and Transformer-driven raw audio synthesis engine (‘Demiurge’), a real-time behavior-responsive data interface (‘Archon’), and two soft robots (‘Hydra’ and ‘Polyp’), and this book.

Marek has a PhD from Harvard, an ASCAP award in music journalism, and a career as an artist exhibiting around the globe.