An Improvisation Performance with AI-Music by Scharmien Zandi 2023.
Scharmien the Shaman & the Healing Manifestation Ensemble is a scenographic performance with a musical, choreographic, improvisational and computer-generated focus. It is a sonic-physical improvisation based on a loop that originates from an AI-generated program that generates a text (prompts) to music. The musicians and dancers respond by improvising. The result is a landscape of improvisation that comes to the fore so that the loop fades into the background to the point where it is no longer relevant and can be switched off. The performance ends when the musicians and dancers finish their improvisation.
The scene of the performance represents a dystopian world. Our world! Our home!
We are in the age of sensitivities. The world is deeply wounded. Artificial Intelligence is the new divine figure, understood as a deity "AI-men", in which an AI acts as a deity and makes decisions for humans through digital and automated processes. Free will has been slain and imprisoned by those who resist these imposed decisions. A group of humans wish to free themselves from this machine captivity and initiate a resistance by summoning Scharmien the Shaman.
Scharmien the Shaman uses a spell of chaos with the Healing Manifestation Ensemble, in which female masculinity initiates the dissolution of the human race. Through the dissolution, the machine can be fed with chants and prayers (prompts) and made dependent on the ensemble. The physical-sound activity with instrumentalists and dancers increases, thus disabling the machine. Scharmien, the shaman, eliminates the AI (shuts down the machine/loop) while the manifestation ensemble continues to improvise. The ceremony reaches its climax, where the magic of the acoustics enters. The chaos dissolves and the ceremony ends with the last and first cry of Scharmien, the shaman. The human being is reintroduced and with it the will, the independence and the decisiveness of humanity.
Contributors
Jeremy Allison – instrumentalist / percussion
Doro Altenburger – Dance / Performance
Michael Auinger – instrumentalist / saxophone
Vera Bormann – dance / performance
Michaela Hamajova – dance / drum
Fabian Tobias Huster – dance / performance
Jana Krautloher – dance / performance
Daniel Schneeberger – instrumentalist / guitar
Scharmien Zandi – AI Producer / Performance
Michaela Starr – Dance / Performance