#like imagine using ai for music art writing etc . could never be me

[cannibal-nightmares]

!!! yes, please do (talk shop about it)!!

My internet crashed while writing this last night waahh!!! OK OK a preface: I am not always well-versed in who a musical artist is beyond their art (this has come up quite a bit recently hahaha), so if I miss something in that specific regard, that's most likely why: I don't know much about Clarence Clarity, himself.

Second preface: "NO NOW" is tied for my favourite album of all time. Now that that's out of the way…

I almost hate to consider using "NO NOW" as a basis of expectation, but it really is something unfathomably unique. "VANISHING ACT II: ULTIMATE REALITY" was a satiating in-between of "VANISHING ACT I: NO NOUNS" and his demo stuff on Bandcamp (such as "YOUR WRONG," "YOUR WRONG TO," and "YOUR3 WRONG"). "Vanishing Act I" has a similar (in comparison) taste of sound collage to that of "THINK: PEACE;" I could talk all day about Clarence's inclinations for obvious preferences in basslines, instrumentation*, etc… oooor I could simplify it down to an uncountable amount of layers, micro transitions, and hard entrances/exits. In the grand scheme of Clarity, "Vanishing Act II" and his demos are… Minimal! (shhh, we're going to pretend for a moment he doesn't quite literally have an ambient record hahaha).

So let's talk about avant garde. What he did with "NO NOW" is, to me, Beach Boys status. I'm talking The Wrecking Crew on "Pet Sounds," Brian Wilson doing "The Smile Sessions." (If anyone has not seen his producing livestreams... You will not believe what this guy hodge-podges together and how. I don't remember what video it is where he just manipulates the utter mess out of a collection of random public sound effects and samples) To my preferences, sadly, "Vanishing Act II" is not that, BUT, I do like that it has that familiar soul feel throughout it that Clarence loves to lean on, and it can allow newer listeners to get their feet wet in. (Cause let's be real. "NO NOW" is A LOT.) Too, if Spotify-seasoned fans have never heard his extra stuff spread around, it's a good segue between them (with the exception of "Once in the Styx…" which. heh. is my fav CC song. this is beside the point.).

I do like the little flavorings sprinkled throughout II that tie it together with I, but, unfortunately, listening to them back-to-back questions the relevance. Lyrically, they mesh together with a little imagination, stylistically…? For a second it made me think about Crywolf's "widow [OBLIVION Pt. I]" and "exuvium [OBLIVION Pt. II]" in terms of concept sequel and narrative, but then comes the discussion on what happened to the musical execution. Honestly honestly, I think I am just very much well-adjusted to the absolute chaotic calamity that is "NO NOW," to the point that the new record is a jalapeno pepper to the Carolina Reaper I am used to, heh.

It's a catchy album-that-feels-like-an-EP; I have yet to explore some of the lyrics in-depth, though the skewed sort of resentment throughout it didn't escape me: While his emotionality (fictional narrative or not) throughout his songs is often like a dagger pointed at something hyper-specific beyond the listener, this time it felt like there was veil intentionally blurring the message, like he spoke through tongues to snarl an anecdote he feels he can't say outright. ...This could be my own magic brain, though. This is all to say that some of the lyrics felt like that of Everything Everything's "Raw Data Feel" in which the prose was quite literally AI-generated to spit out what sounds like nonsense and might be just that.

If you liked it, listen to or review YOUR WRONG 1-3, if you felt it lacked luster, step back into Vanishing Act I or even "THINK: PEACE." If you think it's a lot as it is… Heh. Listen again until it grows on you. I don't have a favourite track yet, but the opener, "What Year Is This?!?! JFC" has everything I love about the demo tapes plus more; it's punchy just like that of Vanishing Act I's "False Positive," also to include the delayed vocals which I'm a suuucker for. Spooky. In that realm of unreality Clarence is so good at wielding, the ending of "Guinevere" starts to be subtly-"Tathāgatagarbha"-esque, like gently waking up from a nightmare... GOSH WAIT I HAVEN'T EVEN CONSIDERED THE ARG ANGLES.. WAIT. Damn! Maybe I need to get a Twitter account, I'm sure there's lore I'm missing... (//silly) "The Greatest Living Musician, Found Dead" reminded me of that sort of blade in Nolan Potter's "Music is Dead," I keep coming back to "juliano so cute lowkey" as an earworm, "Playing Our Parts" continues off of songs with a sort of "fuck it, just fake it" theme especially seen in Vanishing I. It's all still uniquely Clarence Clarity.

…You know. I wrote all this. And I'm listening to this record for what might be the 4th or 5th time. And all of a sudden I'm realizing it might partly be the mix. Is it a bit low? Anyways, If "NO NOW" is "Skiptracing," "VANISHING ACT II: ULTIMATE REALITY" is "Going Going Gone." Verstehst? Ultimately, I could say I am a bit underwhelmed, but what Clarence Clarity does in terms of music currently goes beyond the definition of hyper pop and PC, and has created his very own realm of avant garde sound collage. No one does it like Clarity, he's setting his own bar of expectation. I'm excited for the life of this album, I'm excited for what's next. :)

Thank you so much for the ask WAHHHH I love yammering about music and getting people into new stuff (shout out to my co-worker who let me play a bit of No Now after we discussed hyper pop and noise, only to then tell me that Arca was a bit much for his tastes LOL I'M SORRY) Since we're on the topic, I will conclude with an interjection: the poem on my pinned post is from "Vanishing Act I," "It's Happening Again"

Thank you, thank you, anon, this was fun :)

[r6shippingdelivery]

headcannons for hobbies? Like what they do on their off time?

Hi nonnie! I actually did a Hobbies HC for “all” ops a long time ago. But seeing that was before the expanded bios, and it only reached up to Gridlock and Mozzie, I’d say it’s time for an updated version, don’t you say? 

Some of the answers are unchanged from the old post, because I already nailed it or the new info didn’t disprove my ideas. But I had to revise a lot of the answers I gave the first time around! In order to find their hobbies and/or get a glimpse of their lives beyond Rainbow and what they might like, I read all the bios, and looked up concept art, and elites, and past battlepass content, etc. And when none of that was enough, I just went with my gut instinct 😂 Thank you to @grain-crain-drain, @dagoth-menthol & @todragonsart for bouncing ideas with me when I was stuck! 💕

Hobbies Headcanons for ALL ops (up to Neon Dawn)

FBI

- Ash: According to her savta, shooting things is not a hobby, but Ash disagrees. And since according to her expanded bio she knows Hebrew, Arabic, English, French and Greek, I’m willing to bet she enjoys learning languages as well. - Thermite: He grew up on a ranch and loves riding. He’s also taken an interest in improving gadgets it seems, so my old proposal that he dabbles in forging/smithing stuff seems plausible. And based on this concept art, demolition derbies attending and maybe even competing himself too? - Pulse: He’s interested in a variety of topics and goes through phases of intense, nearly obsessive focus, until something else captures his attention. He still has a lingering fondness for building muscle cars, since it was something he used to do with his father. And like Thermite and Hibana, it seems he might enjoy demolition derbies. - Castle: He’s a language nerd, studying/reading/practicing new languages is his hobby for sure. Since the expanded bio says he rescues abused dogs, I don’t think it would be far fetched he volunteered at animal shelters too.

SAS

- Thatcher: Aside from repairing his boat, The Iron Maggie, he also enjoys fishing. He used to do that with his dad & brothers, and tried to take the rest of the SAS fishing as a bonding experience. It didn’t go very well - Sledge: He plays rugby, and has an inexplicable fondness of trying the wildest ideas that tend to end with something broken, be it one of his bones or a structure or wall (just read his extended psychological profile and you’ll see, lmao) - Smoke: Boxing, it helps him focus all his chaotic energy. And chemistry in general, it’s not just a hobby but a passion of his. - Mute: he enjoys tinkering with stuff, taking it apart and then putting it back together in a different way, just to see if he can improve it or make it work in his own way. Flying drones plays perfectly into that, with the added bonus of being able to do the flying part just for fun too.

GIGN

- Montagne: His main passion is working with people, teaching and mentoring others, and therefore when he’s not on duty, his main passtime still is mingling with people and getting to know them. I could see him making overtures with Castle, interested in the American and fascinated by his knowledge of various languages, an area Monty feels insecure about due to only knowing French and English.  - Twitch: Engineering, robotics and developing an empathic AI is her life.Twitch is a workaholic passionate about those topics. She also greatly enjoys traveling and, according to her expanded bio, people watching.  - Doc: He surely had some hobby at one point, but he can’t remember it, or the last time he had free time for it. Doc is also a workaholic, although one that loves to complain about it.  - Rook: Apparently he’s passionate about cycling, auto racing, and rock concerts. Mainly cycling though, since he dropped out of university to cycle around France.

Spetsnaz

- Tachanka: He collects and repairs old weapons. Mostly soviet, but he has some interesting pieces from other countries too. And he dances surprisingly well.  - Kapkan: Aside from a certain interest in psychology, his main hobby is hunting, of course. But he also whittles and carves wooden figurines.  - Glaz: Quite obviously, painting. He’s an artist, and quite a good one. He also likes playing cards, especially poker. - Fuze: He builds new weapon prototypes for fun. And tests them, if he can convince Six of it. He also likes to bake from time to time, a skill he learnt thanks to his grandma - and because he has a sweet tooth.

GSG9

- Jäger: Planes. Model planes, repairing old WWI & II planes, you name it. And watching copious amounts of documentaries.  - Bandit: His bike is his main hobby, both taking care of it and riding it. He also likes playing pool; and, if pranking people counts as a hobby, that’s his oldest one, dating from when he was a kid. - Blitz: He was and still is an athlete at heart, and Blitz loves running. - IQ: In order to disconnect from engineering pursuits, she indulges in rock climbing, spelunking, and writing science fiction stories.

JTF2

- Buck: He crafts mechanical puzzles, and enjoys all kinds of physical activity that can take place outdoors. - Frost: She just loves being surrounded by nature, and often goes mountain climbing or diving.

SEAL

- Valkyrie: Swimming and diving, of course! She wanted to be a professional swimmer, but now it’s just a hobby. And apparently she enrolled for a helicopter pilot license, and language classes. - Blackbeard: According to the expanded bios, he likes sailing and even participated in a championship. And since he climbed Mount Everest, it’s safe to say he also likes mountain climbing.

BOPE

- Capitao: He loves football, playing or watching it, doesn’t matter, he’s all for it. - Caveira: Spends a lot of time practicing Jiu Jitsu, in the gym and also on unofficial tournaments.

SAT

- Hibana: For her it’s traditional Japanese archery (Kyūdō). And probably demolition derbies too accounting that concept art from before with Thermite and Pulse. - Echo: According to the expanded bio, he has few interests outside work, but I always imagined he’d be into gaming and e-sports. Hacking too, and that’s a direct influence from Dokkaebi.

GEO

- Jackal: He plays the acoustic guitar/spanish guitar, and sings too. And now we also know he volunteers with at-risk youth. - Mira: Fixing cars is second nature to her, and thanks to her expanded bio we know she also does metal sculptures that incorporate used mechanical parts.

SDU

- Ying: Extreme driving, which can sometimes trigger her PTSD, and traveling. Especially exploring cities by randomly jumping in public transport and just going anywhere. - Lesion: He is also one to volunteer in underprivileged areas (like Junk Bay, where he grew up), and clearing mines and other unexploded devices. I also imagine him with a certain gusto for playing blackjack.

GROM

- Zofia: If obsessing about her father’s supposed suicide and the oddities surrounding it, and desperately trying to reconnect with her sister count as hobbies, sure, she has those. - Ela: She’s also an artist, one with a very particular vision that some have called narcissistic. Apparently she also does some “freelance” volunteer work, roaming the streets at night and offering help/comfort, or a willing ear to the people she meets.

707SMB

- Vigil: He likes to take walks around the forest, just aimless exploring and marvelling at nature and any animals he might come across. Often listens to relaxing music while doing so, and he might pick a pretty rock here and there to bring home. - Dokkaebi: Hacking is her hobby, of course. She also has several social media profiles and is an active member in a couple of hacking forums. As per a previous battlepass, I believe she enjoys mountain trekking too. And dancing to electro beat, due to her elite.

CBRN

- Lion: His rebel years left him with an appreciation for rock music and a dream to be in a group. Lion still plays the electric guitar, when he’s not off volunteering at the local church. - Finka: Pushed by her parents from a young age to try different sports, just like her siblings, she eventually discovered a strong love for fencing and ice-skating.

GIS

- Maestro: Cooking, and boxing, an interest he shares with Smoke. But mostly cooking. - Alibi: She’s also a marksman, engages Ash in friendly shooting competitions.

GSUTR

- Clash: She’s very involved in different activist causes, mostly surrounding racial issues and inequality. - Maverick: Photography, mostly nature or candid shots of his fellow operators. I also think he likes horses and riding. And Buzkashi of course, but he hasn’t played since he left Kabul.

GIGR

- Kaid: Playing chess, he’s a good strategist and it shows. And  while dozing off with a cat on his lap is not a hobby, he also loves that. - Nomad: Traveling to all sorts of remote locations, she’s an explorer with a thirst to prove herself. She also keeps a travel journal, which includes maps and some drawings of the places she’s seen.

SASR

- Mozzie: Dirt biking, of course. The more dangerous the jumps and stunts are, the more he likes it. He knows his limits and works to surpass them. - Gridlock: Robotics. She still wants to compete again in robot championships, just like she and Mozzie did so many years ago. She would consider that fixing cars and vehicles has become more part of her job than a hobby, but still loves it too.

Phantom Sight

- Nokk: Fencing, as evidenced by some of her concept art, she participated in fencing tournaments. - Warden: He knows appearances are important, and he cultivated a very specific image, so he likes to take care of that, be it by buying luxury or antique cars, or designer suits, etc.

Ember Rise

- Amaru: Archeology and exploring the Amazon jungle is her passion. It used to be her whole life and job, but since she joined Rainbow, she’s been busy with training and missions, yet she never lost her love for adventure, history and protecting her country’s cultural artifacts. - Goyo: He’s a really good chess player, and enjoys other games where he either has to think, or his usual poker face and calm demeanor can throw his opponents off.

Shifting Tides

- Kali: When she’s not writing reports about her underlings progress, or making lists about who should be ascended/rewarded, who needs to be punished or chastised, etc, she’ll be doing yoga, since it helps her focus. Or hardcore pilates when she needs to burn away some frustration first. - Wamai: Diving and being underwater in general, be it on his special immersion tanks or on the actual sea, it doesn’t matter. He finds it calming (and he’s addicted to the anoxia sensation)

Void Edge

- Iana: Space exploration fascinates her, and she’s always trying to learn everything she can about the cosmos, watching documentaries and conducting her own in-depth research. - Oryx: Wrestling helps him hone his physical prowess, and it’s also a measured outlet for his deep seated rage. He also greatly enjoys reading poetry.

Steel Wave

- Melusi: She’s committed to the conservation cause, which stems from both her love of wildlife and nature, and her protective instincts. She likes to explore too, although she’s not driven by a will to prove herself or reach certain goals, but simply for the joy of seeing natural spaces. - Ace: Social Media. He’s obsessed with his public image and popularity. While he travels quite a bit, it seems he does it more to share new and exciting selfies on Instagram than for the pleasure of visiting new places.

Shadow Legacy

- Zero: He knits and crochets, it’s an engaging hobby that helps him clear his mind, plus he enjoys making stuff too. Not many people know about this side of him though. 

Neon Dawn

- Aruni: She and Hero, her giant pouched rat, volunteer on landmine detection and removal efforts. She also likes to travel extensively, and has done so in the company of Twitch and Nomad.

[takadanobaba]

Jin Norizuki’s Birthday PriZoom 7/18/2021

Oh the things I do for Jin Norizuki

That was SUCH an experience. I had a lot of fun!! 

Main takeaway is that I am now acutely aware of when to YO in a song

(Okay so this is my first time attending a prizoom (or even any kinpri screening outside of Luna’s sss rabbit sessions!) so this is all entirely new to me and I can’t really compare it to much, but I figured that it’d be good to write up a report of sorts to fill in for Luna in a way!)

The prizooms are also accessible to everyone and don’t require any Japanese info confirmation!! If you’re interested in attending please go and support kinpri!!!

(Note: I think about Jin wayyyy too much and interpret them as nonbinary, so I use they/them pronouns for Jin. It’s just automatic for me at this point and feels weird otherwise haha so I’ll be doing that in this)

Jin is my all time favorite character and love of my life who I’m extremely delusional about so when a prizoom was announced for their birthday I went INSANE because I didn’t expect Jin’s birthday to be acknowledged AT ALL given how they’re usually excluded/treated like a side character (+ kinpri’s been putting out little to no content lately anyways....haha....). I was waiting in anticipation ever since it was announced (around June 6th) and even put in a time-off request for my work the day of its announcement just so I could attend!!!! ........ You can imagine my frustration at kinpri waiting until the very last minute to put out details about Jin’s prizoom ^^;

💙 💙 💙 💙 💙 💙 

Also!! I’m a complete ~ foreigner ~ and managed to get tickets perfectly fine with my American credit card (and putting in some very obviously Not-An-Actual-Resident-Of-Japan address info...)! So if anyone’s curious about attending a prizoom but worried about region-locking, it’s possible! Very possible! If you’re interested in it, please go! You don’t need to have a Japanese phone number/credit card/address/etc. to purchase PriZoom tickets on RakutenTicket! It’s such an experience! If you need any help buying tickets then I’d be more than happy to assist!! Please support the PriZoom screenings and help increase the demand for more kinpri content!!!!!!!!!!!! I will personally become a living prizoom advertisement

(Also if any kinpri staff find this: I’m sorry for not respecting rules this time but I just wanted to provide a detailed account of the prizoom event and encourage participation for other foreign fans! I won’t do this again!!!)

💙 💙 💙 💙 💙 💙 

I only attended the first and third showings (consisting of the first movie and Over the Sunshine!) because I wanted to see the new/not currently archived content (the second/pride the hero showing’s bonus was just Jin’s birthday video by Joji which I already revisit little too much ahaha). I also went to the chat-only rooms because I wasn’t very confident that I wouldn’t be awkward with my nonexistent cheering experience and intent to just observe what its like (despite knowing that the cheering rooms are more fun based on what Luna said haha). That, and I was planning on using the EXTREMELY OBNOXIOUS soundboard of ABSOLUTE CHAOS for everything since I have issues with voice dysphoria and figured it’d be good to stick to the room with that normalized as the one and only cheering method so participating would be a little less annoying to others, since we’d all have the same idea ^^;

I’m more active on twitter and follow/am mutuals with pretty much anybody who likes Jin enough to post about them, so it was cool seeing almost everyone there! At least half of them tweeted about this being their first prizoom haha. Jin’s birthday was also promoted as a good introduction to prizooms since the first showing was set at a price point of 718 yen instead of the usual 1,760 yen? So, lots of first timers attending! I guess most people had the same thought process as me about the whole insecure-about-not-being-used-to-proper-cheering/using-their-mic thing? Because most of my twitter following ended up in the chat-only rooms with me! Fun!

Also interesting how most people chose the male voice option for the cheering soundboard feature since there’s actually only 2 men who love Jin like that (I’m included in that number!!) in the Jin-obsessed twitter circle. I guess it was because it sounds kinda Joji-ish? and therefore fitting for an event dedicated to Jin! What with them being meant for each other and all.... Plus being Joji is just a fun way to play off having issues about using your own voice (I... project onto Joji a lot.)

👆 👆 👆

Okay I actually typed up all of the above during the second showing (since I wasn’t occupied attending that one) and everyone had the same train of thought and was definitely being Joji. You know that one “song” in Over the Sunshine- Glorious Schwarz- consisting of Joji just going wild infodumping for 3.5 minutes? Yeah EVERYONE who selected the male voice option was spamming 「おれもー！」/ “ME TOO!!!” during that (including me!). So it was like:

“I weighed 4646 grams at birth! ☆” 

“MMMMEMEEMEMMT MEE ME MEEE EMME ME   ME TOO M M ME TOO”

SO OBNOXIOUS. I LOVE IT. EVERYONE SHARING THE SAME BRAINCELL. THE JOJI BRAINCELL.

💙

The highlight of the prizoom  (in my opinion) was when some guy repeatedly hit よっ！/ YO! to the music in the first movie, which then led to everyone having a collective ~ Realization ~ 

After that happened, everybody joined in and started YO!-ing along in the other lives. Beautiful.

(Blurred recording of Dramatic Love and Showcase Night just so YO!u can see what I mean.)

(I only did those two to test screen recording after failing to archive the first Jin bonus while using the soundboard feature in the first showing, initially I didn’t intend to record anything but the bonuses and will not be doing that anymore. If you attend, don’t be like me or worse!!!! Please!! I’ll delete these if needed/after a few weeks. Also just wanted to mention that Koi no Royal Straight Flush is up there in Kinpri’s Most YO!-able songs)

I love this soundboard feature. Sounds like hell. Prizooms are truely a new form of art because of it. Amazing how cheering screenings have evolved over a pandemic. Music feels empty to me without the YO!s now. After this I ended up listening to the entire kinpri discography so I could determine the YO!ability of each song. Not sure if every prizoom is like that? But I really want to go to more showings just for the community experience! I’m morbidly curious as to how many people would try to YO! to Platonic Sword. I considered going to Rei’s because they’re showing Shiny Rose Stars, but I probably won’t though since money and sleep are things (They really should make tickets no more than 1,000 yen.... they’re zoom meetings with audio problems....THE AUDIO ISSUES ARE FUN THOUGH! YOU CAN SPAM “GANBATTE” WITH EVERYONE!!) Plus while I do like every kinpri character, none of the street boys are really my favorites and going to every showing regardless of character would be a lot. I assumed that I was only going to try attending Joji’s until they announced that they were gonna do something for Jin!! So if you want to see what it’s like PLEASE get tickets and experience it for yourself!! It’s so much more fun participating !!!! Relying on 1-2 people to post event summaries isn’t exactly consistent coverage of every prizoom either!

\ よっ！/      \ よっ！/      \ よっ！/

So much of this is a community experience that you just have to see for yourself! It’s really cool seeing people go all out for their favorites and just going wild. Notable participants include:

- Two separate people just working out the entire time (one of them doing “Prism Exercise” meaning very high effort full-body cheering and dancing? It was really impressive seeing them go all-out for such a long time!)

- Two (2!) Ai cosplayers!!! One attending the prizoom with a Jin cosplayer!!

- The lady who cosplayed Jin in their cute green pre-retirement prism star outfit WITH A HUGE JIN PUPPET IN THE SAME STYLE AS THE SHUFFLE PUPPETS IN THE STAGEPLAY!!!

- That one person who just had a Minato fish head on the entire time (?!)

- A Victoria cosplayer who showed off a really nice!! drawing of Jin they did during the participant showcase at the end of the screenings

- The person with a REALLY CUTE!!!!! homemade Jin plushie!!

- Two people who attended with 3D/vtuber style models of the Go Go Glorious! (YMT29 subunit) members: Noel Tokyo and Mikado Shibuya (who also had a model of Ai!)

- A really cute Joji vtuber model!

💙 💙 💙 💙 💙 💙

The bonuses were Jin’s birthday video from 2016 and a birthday message of sorts from Jin!

I actually didn’t manage to properly archive the first one as intended because things went horribly wrong so I ended up with nothing but just a terrible (said affectionately) little recording of the soundboard I linked earlier. But whatever I shouldn’t be doing that anyways. Hopefully kinpri includes that and the other prizoom bonuses in something later.... the thought of any content being stuck as lost media terrifies me. I don’t have a good enough memory or a high enough Japanese proficiency level to type it out but it wasn’t particularly analyzable or anything (telling that to myself to make me feel better about losing it). Just the usual Jin being dramatic and going on an evil monologue. Jin being evil ASMR. I lovingly burned another one of Jin’s evil laughs into my mind too so there’s that.

For the 3rd showing bonus however I did not fail though it’s arguably the less interesting bonus of the two since it’s unvoiced. I really love Jin’s voice. Big sexy. Actual dialogue is pretty similar to each other from what I’ve gathered (ending with one of Jin’s cute little アーーーッハッハッハッ！！！！！’s (the text effect for the unvoiced bonus was an appreciated detail!). 

(I’m not very confident in my ability to provide a good translation so I’ll just not embarrass myself)

“ AAAaAAaHAHAAHAAa ~ ! ! ! ! ! ! ! “

💙

Yes Jin I’ll support you in the future-!!! ヾ(>▽ <、 )

I’ll never not be obsessed but it’d still be nice to have more substantial content to gush about and do that with.... Kinpri come back and release an anime continuation.... give me the Jin plot development....kinpri come back my happiness is a little too reliant on you

After the showings you get an email asking for feedback which is cool! I’ve been waiting to complain about how 法月 is written as Noriduki instead of Norizuki for the longest time but I never had a chance until now haha. Makes it so painful for me to buy Jin merch. Also begged for an anime continuation. I wonder how much they take into account feedback? I guess I’ll see when/if they start writing Jin’s name how it’s supposed to be.

ANYWAYS

IF YOU WANT TO GO TO A PRIZOOM, DO IT!

Prism shows really are best experienced with a community!!! If you like kinpri it’s a GREAT OPPORTUNITY to experience what a cheering screening is like with the Japanese fanbase from the comfort of your very own home which is most likely nowhere near Japan!! Everyone should experience prism shows!!!! I have no regrets and I’m still so hyped from the prism sparkle!!!

ANYBODY CAN ATTEND AND BUY TICKETS EVEN WITHOUT JAPANESE INFORMATION!!!

 \\   GLORIOUS SCHWARZ!   //

[recentanimenews]

Happy Birthday, Space Cowboy: A Shinichiro Watanabe Retrospective

  Today we wish a very happy birthday to the Cowboy Bebop director, the one and only Shinichiro Watanabe! Watanabe-san has been a powerhouse in the world of anime for well over two decades, working with acclaimed studios such as Sunrise Inc., Studio Nue, and BONES. His mastery at blending Western and Eastern elements has earned Watanabe a devoted fanbase in many different countries. One of the most consistent aspects of Watanabe's catalog is his skill at successfully amalgamating a variety of genres from sci-fi to Westerns to comedy and more.

In honor of Watanabe's birthday, I'll be exploring the artistic depth of three anime from his impressive oeuvre and celebrating the very special spark that can be found in all his works. Read on for more!

Terror in Resonance (2014)

Terror in Resonance seems critically underappreciated when compared to some of Watanabe's other directorial efforts. Though it lacks the robust character development and sense of immersion found in his other titles, the series still retains many of the qualities that make Watanabe such a globally respected anime auteur.

Terror in Resonance follows two high-school-aged terrorists named Twelve and Nine as they plot a series of bombings in order to reveal the injustices enacted against them — and many other children — during a secret government operation called the Athena Plan. Along the way, a lonely girl named Lisa finds herself enwrapped in the boys' mission, and experiences camaraderie for the first time due to their presence.

The show's basic premise alone reflects Watanabe's willingness to explore uncommon thematic spaces by featuring literal terrorists as two of the main characters. Common in his other works as well, Watanabe invites viewers to feel compassion for characters who inhabit the outermost margins of societal acceptability. The show doesn't endorse Twelve and Nine's actions, but it does position them as isolated characters with real human attributes, acting coherently in retaliation to the incorrigible exploitation they faced as children. Twelve and Nine also make extreme efforts to make sure no one is killed due to their bombings, which serves as an empathetic deviation from standard depictions of terrorists as one-sided, monstrous caricatures.

Ultimately, Terror in Resonance features many trademarks of Watanabe's unique touch: compassionate explorations of loneliness, a tragic narrative interspersed with brief moments of beauty, and yet another gorgeous soundtrack by Yoko Kanno (a frequent collaborator with Watanabe).

Macross Plus (1995)

Watanabe made his directorial debut as co-director for Macross Plus working alongside Shoji Kawamori (the creator of the original Macross). This four-part OVA is the best flying mech, artifcial-intelligence-pop-music-gone-horribly-wrong redo of Top Gun I've ever seen. I remember I first saw it on the Starz Channel back in 2002 or 2003. It was fun to revisit the US dub recently with the fresh realization that Bryan Cranston — aka Walter White, our favorite fictional suburban meth dealer — did the voice acting for the main character Isamu. Isamu is like a more womanizing Spike from Cowboy Bebop, mixed with the arrogance of Mugen from Samurai Champloo, and is an early example of a recurrent protagonist-archetype in Watanabe's titles. The playful comedic qualities Watanabe would become known for were already apparent in much of Macross Plus, such as the scene when Isamu and his rival Bowman bring up old adolescent/high-school gripes while they're both engaged in an airborne mech-duel to the death.

Once again, Yoko Kanno's absolutely incredible score must be mentioned. The soundtrack ranges from orchestral music perfect for dogfights to emotional ballads and '90s trance (there's also a really cool reference to the Aphex Twin album "Selected Ambient Works 85-92" on a bus sign in one scene). Watanabe's first directorial outing already grapples with a subject near and dear to his heart: music. The last episode features an intense sequence involving an AI popstar named Sharon Apple, who takes control of everyone viewing her concert via seductive musical mind control. This scene explores a what-if scenario: an imagined future where technology meshes with the power of music for nefarious — rather than healing — ends. Either way, since Watanabe is a self-proclaimed "music freak," it's fun to watch him implement a plot device about just how disruptively powerful music can be (his most recent anime Carole and Tuesday tackles AI and pop music with a more neutral lens, as an FYI). Macross Plus is not to be missed.

Cowboy Bebop (1998)

  I'll never forget what it was like to experience Cowboy Bebop for the very first time when it initially aired on Adult Swim in 2001. I must have been 12 or 13 at the time, and few pieces of media have made such a lasting impression on me. I was already extremely impressed even after seeing the first episode "Asteroid Blues," but it's the fifth episode entitled "Ballad of Fallen Angels" — where viewers are introduced for the first time to the central antagonist Vicious — that completely sold me on the series.

"Ballad of Fallen Angels" culminates in a climactic battle that takes place in a church, with the main character Spike duking it out against Vicious and his goons. The most memorable moment for me is the scene when Spike is thrown out of the top of the church by Vicious. Spike falls in slow-motion as viewers are treated to a montage of his tragic crime syndicate past and his relationship with his lost love Julia. It's such a stunning moment that perfectly echoes the old creative writing adage "show don't tell," since it subtly expresses so much about Spike's life without explicitly battering it over your head. The scene speaks volumes in just a few wordless seconds, with no sounds to be heard at all other than Yoko Kanno's gorgeous choir and piano-based track "Green Bird." I've drifted toward arthouse movies as I've grown older, and I truly think the aforementioned scene was my first time experiencing the ineffable artfulness that I find in the experimental films that move me most. It feels a little silly and overblown to say, but the sequence feels like it contains a large spectrum of life — love, hate, sadness, memories, dreams, etc.

Cowboy Bebop is a show that abounds with moments like this. There are so many moving scenes rich in an atmospheric tenderness that aches with longing, loneliness, and beauty. Intimate scenes where characters in interstellar ships stare quietly at a sea of stars. A view of someone smoking a cigarette alone in a dimly lit alleyway. Or something like the ending of "Waltz for Venus," when a music box-esque song plays while Spike gazes into the sky as spores that can blind drift downward like snow.

I could go on and on about the series — the masterful quality of Keiko Nobumoto's screenplay, the riveting action sequences and lovable characters, the expert blend of genres coupled with breathtaking animation and music, and how Spike's somewhat Buddhist philosophy (whatever happens, happens) influenced my own. Cowboy Bebop truly deserves all the praise and is undoubtedly one of the best animated works of all time.

So here's to you Shinichiro Watanabe. I hope you have a birthday as stunning and cool as the anime you've graced the world with.

What else do you love by Shinichiro Watanabe, and why? Sounds off in the comments below!

    Do you love anime? Do you love writing? If you have an idea for a features story, pitch it to Crunchyroll Features!

By: news+feed@crunchyroll.com

[maiji]

Tag game

Wooops I totally missed this in my notifications! I've definitely answered a few variations of this meme before, so BY THE POWER VESTED IN ME BY ME I have taken the liberty of adjusting most some of the questions if I’ve answered them before. 

Tagged by: @taki-flower ^^ (thank you!)

(Nick)Name: Maiji

Most frequent typo I make of my own nickname: Nauhu, thanks to wrong home keys

My Zodiac sign, and a Zodiac sign I think is super cool for whatever reason: Gemini. I think Aquarius a super cool sign because it’s eccentric and idealist and humanitarian and COOL TO DRAW

Height I think I am VS height I actually am: I always think I’m like 5′6″ or something but I’m actually more like 5′4ish. (I never remember how tall I am so I keep a note with this information on my phone in case people ask lol)

Languages and levels:

English - fluent

Mandarin - fluent speaking, reading meh, writing lol omg what is that abomination you write like you’re in grade 3

Spanish - muy muy basic everything

Japanese - super basic everything (can read some kanji thanks to Chinese but not know the pronunciation in Japanese, can read katakana and hiragana but not necessarily know the meaning lmao)

French - super basic everything

3 fruits I like:

Bananas (but not necessarily banana-flavoured things)

Longan

Dragonfruit

3 smells I like:

Fresh air

Fresh laundry

Fresh books

3 colours I like:

Green - but not green green, I like greens that are more yellowy-green or sometime more bluey-green

Neutrals (greys, browns etc.) that defy easy classification

Black

3 fictional characters I would marry:

Hokushin (Yu Yu Hakusho). Also we’re already married

Kaoru Chujo (Tale of Genji)

Arikoto (Ooku)

A story involving me and candy I like: I used to love White Rabbit candy. When I was in high school (I think) I had a whole bag of it next to my bed. My bedroom was in the basement, and at some point the whole thing hardened into something inedible and/or I got so sick of it that I haven’t eaten any since. Although, I did have a white rabbit candy-flavoured ice cream from Wong’s Ice Cream much more recently. It was really good!! And they have vegan and gluten-free flavours too!!

If I could make a national or worldwide whatever day to celebrate something (e.g., Cat Day, Pancake Day etc.), what would it be? Comic Arts Day!

3 songs on repeat and why: 

The Echo Game (House of Flying Daggers soundtrack) - it sounds badass and I like it when I’m working on/imagining fight sequences

To Die For (The Birthday Massacre) - it’s cool but not in your face, great music when I’m drawing or writing. And the lyrics are very evocative, so if I happen to pause and actually pay attention to them, it’s fantastic mood and inspiration.

Ai Shuuressha (Kosugi Juurouta & Horiuchi Kenyuu) - HOKUSHIN lmao

What’s a memorable dream you’ve had? The memory of this one still puts a smile on my face.

3 things on my bed (this question originally was “blankets I use to sleep” and my answer is always one. I KNOW IT’S MINDBLOWINGGGG RIGHT):

A ditto

A giant IKEA carrot

A neck pillow

A memory from a trip I really enjoyed: Going to Tamsui/Danshui with my mom the first time I returned to Taiwan as an adult. It was just a really lovely day trip that started off with one of the best meals ever, and strolling down the Old Street and drawing the views of the river and people-watching and listening to the security guard telling stories and watching the sun set. 

Dream job: I didn’t change (I MEAN, ADJUST) this question because it actually made me reflect quite a bit. I used to say something ridiculous here, like travelling Taiwan eating food while drawing Yu Yu Hakusho doujinshi, but to be honest I'm not entirely sure I would want that to be my job even jf it were possible. In all honesty I’d say my dream job is one where I...

Work with people I like.

Have positive engagement - interest, enjoyment, achievement - the majority of the time. (Because even things I love can still frustrate me to the extreme, like art.)

Have, and am encouraged to have, the energy, passion, flexibility and time to work on my personal projects - art, comics, fandom, etc.

In short, I'm incredibly fortunate and privileged to be able to say I have my dream job right now. Everyone is different, but I personally don't relish the idea of having my own creative projects tied to the pressure of making money or being judged by other people's values of what is worthwhile. And I don't know if I'd love doing it all the time. Burnout is very real, and working in an industry where I do work with other creatives, plus my own hobby, I know so many professionals who almost never have the time or energy for their own projects. 

My thoughts and feelings on this matter may change, but as I’ve written on this topic before, I've felt this way since I first realized what it was that I actually love about the things I love when I was in high school. And for me, that answer wasn’t “do it on demand" nor “have my livelihood rely on it”. 

Go to the nearest book, pg 23 line 17: It’s actually page 711 because Grasses of Remembrance doesn’t start at page 1 lol. It’s right in the middle of a poem quotation and translation, so I’ll post the complete thing or it makes no sense.

Asa madaki / Okite zo mitsuru / Ume no hana / Yo no ma no kaze no / Ushirometasa ni (”Early in the morning / I arose and went to look / At the blossoming plum, / Uneasy over the weather / And what the night wind had done”)

- Prince Motoyoshi (SIS I:29), translation by Edwin Cranston

Have you ever had a song or poem written about you?: Yes, I have written many dumb ones and a long time ago I even recorded some with a sped-up chipmunk voice as silly jokes. They’re like 10 seconds or something like that. And every so often, because I never bothered deleting the files, they come up on my music library shuffle while I am working and I’m like WTF WAS THAT??????? 

My friends have probably written about me too, usually in our random chat conversations lol.

3 sounds I have a hard time with (I removed “hate” because it’s so strong to me lol): 

Balloons squeaking against each other

Most high pitched scraping/squealing of objects against each other

Beijing opera vocals when I’m stuck in traffic and it’s hot so the window is down and the highest falsetto is blasting nonstop from a TV on the street right next to the car (I realize this this is very specific)

3 sounds I love: 

Wind chimes

Ordinary background hum/presence of people going about life in a familiar space (at home, in the city, on a subway train, in a cafe, etc.)

Benign rustling sounds (e.g., grass and leaves in the wind, paper, soft breaths/whispers)

Do you believe in aliens?: TBH I don’t know. I find the idea interesting but I don’t spend enough time thinking about whether or not I believe in it.

Do you drive?: No.

What is the last book you read?: 50 Philosophy Ideas You Really Need to Know by Ben Dupré

3 things I’m obsessed with: 

Hokushin

Tale of Genji

Rocks

Do you hold grudges: Yeah!! I just don’t really do anything because I’m too busy/lazy. And then I forget. BUT SOMETIMES I REMEMBER

Tumblr URL generator - go to http://www.spinxo.com/tumblr-names and share your results.

SpyderHokushin? ???????

MaijiMaihem and HokkuHokushin are pretty good though. (Also HokushinMine made me laugh.)

If you didn’t like that one, try this one. https://www.mookychick.co.uk/games/tumblr-name-generator.php

Not bad. And is this why Hokushin has no hair

Tagging (Up to Ten People): Only if you want to do this, otherwise IGNORE @taki-flower if you wanna do this again with any of the questions I modified lol, @om-nom-berries, @llljjj​, @sunhawk​, @naomiknight-17 @iwroteyoualoveletter @logicheartsoul @totidem-verbis​ @syntheticsolitude​ @cjjoughin​ and YOU if your username or real name is up to 10 letters long! :D

[bentonpena]

Can Music and AI Coexist? Predictions from 8 Mutek Artists

Can Music and AI Coexist? Predictions from 8 Mutek Artists http://bit.ly/30rqdvt

Music has always been linked with emerging technologies. But AI is something new. AI has the power to completely transform how we make and experience music. AI is already changing the world.

We spoke to 8 artists from MUTEK Montreal 2019 to discuss their wildest predictions for the future of music, AI, and their own workflow.

404.zero

We do not see any future as we expect humanity to destroy the entire planet before AI reaches a certain complexity level to be useful in music creation.

More about 404.zero

Kaleema

I think there’s great potential for AI development in musical creation. But the first thing that comes to mind is who owns the rights of the composition—software creators or the AI?

If an AI is trained to create, it needs to work on pre-existing music… So another question arises: is the AI the author, or is it just a copy from the music that the AI used as a reference?

Is there any possible originality in AI at all? I guess it’s still an early stage to answer all these questions as it’s unknown territory.

My music trajectory is very much related to classic instruments. I play violin and piano since I was a kid and had the opportunity to play in orchestras. It was a collective artistic experience of sharing that I consider of great value.

I think each musician can provide a different touch through his original interpretation to make an art-piece come to life, something that is beyond technicality and virtuosity.

It’s an invisible variable, more of a personality and sensibility thing… In this sense I have certain doubts about how an AI can detach from “data” and algorithmic training in order to provide musicality to a creation, as interpretant or author.

I’d be interested in working with AI as long as the situation doesn’t become a music dialogue where the algorithm behaves the same as me and takes me back to the same point.

If the AI can’t create on its own, rather than just copy artists styles, I wouldn’t be interested to add it to my creative process as I feel I wouldn’t be adding anything new.

More about Kaleema

Adam Basanta

From my perspective, AI is one of many algorithmic approaches that could be useful for making new work. Based on the task at hand, it could be the most appropriate or inappropriate tool.

It certainly offers some exciting new potentials for less than thrilling preparation tasks. For instance, the ability to speed up sophisticated similarity-recognition processes could be very useful when using large sample banks, whether in studio practice or a live application.

In terms of using AI for generating musical structures (such as phrases, rhythms, etc) it’s important to recognize that the result is more dependant on the data it is trained on than on the particularities of the algorithm itself.

The use of such generative tools would involve tailoring of datasets, as well as multiple custom macro-compositional levels which would ensure that the generative material retains a character which is not easily achievable by just training the AI.

I feel that despite the exciting specific possibilities of AI in music, the quality of the music will still much more dependent on one’s ears and imagination rather than on any specific algorithm or application.

More about Adam Basanta

Aquaventure

I would like to see how AI can work with non-copyrighted material. I know there are algorithms out there that can take an input and find something that sounds at least partially similar to it. But what if the search results came exclusively from databases of public domain, free-access sounds?

For example, let’s say I want to add something in a track that I know I can sing, but I don’t want to use my voice; such an algorithm could come in very handy. I can only imagine the exciting, unpredictable material it could take me to—fragments of speeches, videos, field recordings, and so on.

Now, what if we included literally every sound online that isn’t copyrighted? Add to your results every instance of home video on YouTube where people are just hanging out, doing their thing. That would be a tool I’d love to experiment with.

I hear AI technologies are already capable of making full pieces of music based on pre-existing, copyrighted material, but that really doesn’t interest me.

I would rather support projects that expand our possibilities as human creators, instead of gradually dehumanizing the process, stealing our jobs away from us, and banking in on our talent, time and effort. I really hope there are leading AI developers out there with this kind of vision in mind.

More about Aquaventure

Huges Clement

I see AI just as another significant advance in this never ending, exponential quest of pushing and questioning technology’s potential and boundaries in this prehistoric digital age.

Democratization of AI is, in my mind, highly connected to the democratization of art practice in our society.

More than ever now, powerful, complex, human brain/mind inspired and—I am tempted to say—organic, is now accessible for people to get their creative vision out of their head, without being musically trained or know anything about computers or programming.

But Just like any creative technology, adapted to music creation or not, I’m interested in what a creative mind can do with those tools, not the opposite.

More about Hugues Clement

Akiko Nakayama

I am a painter. And I use music as a “clear paint” for my audiovisual performance.

AI will be a good entrance guide to people whose main expression technique was not Music. They will help us in shaping that inspiration. Or it will create unexpected chaos luckily.

From the age of ‘tools used by humans’, I have hope in the age of tools that walk with humans.

More about Akiko Nakayama

TM404

I’m very interested in this subject and I read as much as I can about this.

The human brain and ear will always come up with more interesting and ”better” results than any AI could ever do, I’m sure of that.

There’s this famous example of Daddy’s Car which always pops up when people are speaking about artificial intelligence and music making.

The story of a track that was written by AI. But if you actually care to check, the track wasn’t done by AI really. It was arranged and produced by a human being. Also, the track isn’t even interesting.

For me personally, making music is the most thing I know and I love spending hours and hours in the studio just trying out new things.

I know a lot of people who more or less try to skip certain steps in the process of making music. For instance, saying that no-one who listens to a certain techno tune can hear if it’s a sample of a 909 drum machine or if it’s actually the vintage Roland instrument that is playing.

Well, again I love the moments when I make music and for me it’s more fun to use the hardware drummer instead of browsing tons of samples of the 909. Meaning the end result is not all that counts.

Having fun is the most important thing for me and the reason I make music to begin with. Experiencing with various algorithms and generative sequencers is super enjoyable for me but it will never replace actually coming up with melodies and drum patterns myself.

Having said that, I’m a huge fan of not having full control.

The sole reason I think the TB-303 is the most fun sequencer ever is that I still cannot master it, even after all these years. There’s always a certain degree of randomness in the basses and melodies I write due to the fact that the 303 sequencer is almost impossible to master. Ghost in the machine.

More about TM404

Chloe Alexandra Thompson

I see AI being used as a blanket term that may serve as a means to explore automation through machine learning, as well as creating instruments and applications which allow us to work with our trained applications to explore means of interactivity with data, objects, and human collaborators.

I will be working as a spatial sound designer for an artist named James Sprang later this year who is using an AI speech interpretation software as a means to explore legibility, experience and identity. While I will not directly be using this in my own personal work, I am excited to be working with this AI as it is being trained through the work of many recorded voices of poets we will be playing back and running through it in a spatial audio array.

How I see this fitting into music creation as a whole is having trained and intuitive FX chains that are run through automation. Presently it seems that AI programs are being trained to work with composers to take parts of the composition they may or may not typically focus on and expand those through following the users typical choice patterns.

In my own practice I see machine learning potentials being the integration of smart panning protocols which allow me to have the panning automation I construct through code, and also manually play be mapped out by a program rather than the individual panning protocols I apply to each instrument or movement of a work.

I would like to work with an AI that could translate selected frequencies into poetic text, spoken messages, or “lyrics” based on the writings of many critical theorists and poets who’s work I often reference in my praxis. 

As an artist who focuses on abstractions rather than in a more discernible sung lyric song structure direct messages do not make it into my compositions and this could be a way to apply those abstracted principles and find new avenues of entry to this realm of personal interest.

More about Chloe Alexandra Thompson

Written in collaboration with Mutek Montreal 2019.  Learn more about Mutek and their ongoing series of global events.

The post Can Music and AI Coexist? Predictions from 8 Mutek Artists appeared first on LANDR Blog.

Music via LANDR Blog http://bit.ly/2ZnKIfa August 21, 2019 at 03:13PM

[jessicakmatt]

Can Music and AI Coexist? Predictions from 8 Mutek Artists

Can Music and AI Coexist? Predictions from 8 Mutek Artists: via LANDR Blog

Music has always been linked with emerging technologies. But AI is something new. AI has the power to completely transform how we make and experience music. AI is already changing the world.

We spoke to 8 artists from MUTEK Montreal 2019 to discuss their wildest predictions for the future of music, AI, and their own workflow.

404.zero

We do not see any future as we expect humanity to destroy the entire planet before AI reaches a certain complexity level to be useful in music creation.

More about 404.zero

Kaleema

I think there’s great potential for AI development in musical creation. But the first thing that comes to mind is who owns the rights of the composition—software creators or the AI?

If an AI is trained to create, it needs to work on pre-existing music… So another question arises: is the AI the author, or is it just a copy from the music that the AI used as a reference?

Is there any possible originality in AI at all? I guess it’s still an early stage to answer all these questions as it’s unknown territory.

My music trajectory is very much related to classic instruments. I play violin and piano since I was a kid and had the opportunity to play in orchestras. It was a collective artistic experience of sharing that I consider of great value.

I think each musician can provide a different touch through his original interpretation to make an art-piece come to life, something that is beyond technicality and virtuosity.

It’s an invisible variable, more of a personality and sensibility thing… In this sense I have certain doubts about how an AI can detach from “data” and algorithmic training in order to provide musicality to a creation, as interpretant or author.

I’d be interested in working with AI as long as the situation doesn’t become a music dialogue where the algorithm behaves the same as me and takes me back to the same point.

If the AI can’t create on its own, rather than just copy artists styles, I wouldn’t be interested to add it to my creative process as I feel I wouldn’t be adding anything new.

More about Kaleema

Adam Basanta

From my perspective, AI is one of many algorithmic approaches that could be useful for making new work. Based on the task at hand, it could be the most appropriate or inappropriate tool.

It certainly offers some exciting new potentials for less than thrilling preparation tasks. For instance, the ability to speed up sophisticated similarity-recognition processes could be very useful when using large sample banks, whether in studio practice or a live application.

In terms of using AI for generating musical structures (such as phrases, rhythms, etc) it’s important to recognize that the result is more dependant on the data it is trained on than on the particularities of the algorithm itself.

The use of such generative tools would involve tailoring of datasets, as well as multiple custom macro-compositional levels which would ensure that the generative material retains a character which is not easily achievable by just training the AI.

I feel that despite the exciting specific possibilities of AI in music, the quality of the music will still much more dependent on one’s ears and imagination rather than on any specific algorithm or application.

More about Adam Basanta

Aquaventure

I would like to see how AI can work with non-copyrighted material. I know there are algorithms out there that can take an input and find something that sounds at least partially similar to it. But what if the search results came exclusively from databases of public domain, free-access sounds?

For example, let’s say I want to add something in a track that I know I can sing, but I don’t want to use my voice; such an algorithm could come in very handy. I can only imagine the exciting, unpredictable material it could take me to—fragments of speeches, videos, field recordings, and so on.

Now, what if we included literally every sound online that isn’t copyrighted? Add to your results every instance of home video on YouTube where people are just hanging out, doing their thing. That would be a tool I’d love to experiment with.

I hear AI technologies are already capable of making full pieces of music based on pre-existing, copyrighted material, but that really doesn’t interest me.

I would rather support projects that expand our possibilities as human creators, instead of gradually dehumanizing the process, stealing our jobs away from us, and banking in on our talent, time and effort. I really hope there are leading AI developers out there with this kind of vision in mind.

More about Aquaventure

Huges Clement

I see AI just as another significant advance in this never ending, exponential quest of pushing and questioning technology’s potential and boundaries in this prehistoric digital age.

Democratization of AI is, in my mind, highly connected to the democratization of art practice in our society.

More than ever now, powerful, complex, human brain/mind inspired and—I am tempted to say—organic, is now accessible for people to get their creative vision out of their head, without being musically trained or know anything about computers or programming.

But Just like any creative technology, adapted to music creation or not, I’m interested in what a creative mind can do with those tools, not the opposite.

More about Hugues Clement

Akiko Nakayama

I am a painter. And I use music as a “clear paint” for my audiovisual performance.

AI will be a good entrance guide to people whose main expression technique was not Music. They will help us in shaping that inspiration. Or it will create unexpected chaos luckily.

From the age of ‘tools used by humans’, I have hope in the age of tools that walk with humans.

More about Akiko Nakayama

TM404

I’m very interested in this subject and I read as much as I can about this.

The human brain and ear will always come up with more interesting and ”better” results than any AI could ever do, I’m sure of that.

There’s this famous example of Daddy’s Car which always pops up when people are speaking about artificial intelligence and music making.

The story of a track that was written by AI. But if you actually care to check, the track wasn’t done by AI really. It was arranged and produced by a human being. Also, the track isn’t even interesting.

For me personally, making music is the most thing I know and I love spending hours and hours in the studio just trying out new things.

I know a lot of people who more or less try to skip certain steps in the process of making music. For instance, saying that no-one who listens to a certain techno tune can hear if it’s a sample of a 909 drum machine or if it’s actually the vintage Roland instrument that is playing.

Well, again I love the moments when I make music and for me it’s more fun to use the hardware drummer instead of browsing tons of samples of the 909. Meaning the end result is not all that counts.

Having fun is the most important thing for me and the reason I make music to begin with. Experiencing with various algorithms and generative sequencers is super enjoyable for me but it will never replace actually coming up with melodies and drum patterns myself.

Having said that, I’m a huge fan of not having full control.

The sole reason I think the TB-303 is the most fun sequencer ever is that I still cannot master it, even after all these years. There’s always a certain degree of randomness in the basses and melodies I write due to the fact that the 303 sequencer is almost impossible to master. Ghost in the machine.

More about TM404

Chloe Alexandra Thompson

I see AI being used as a blanket term that may serve as a means to explore automation through machine learning, as well as creating instruments and applications which allow us to work with our trained applications to explore means of interactivity with data, objects, and human collaborators.

I will be working as a spatial sound designer for an artist named James Sprang later this year who is using an AI speech interpretation software as a means to explore legibility, experience and identity. While I will not directly be using this in my own personal work, I am excited to be working with this AI as it is being trained through the work of many recorded voices of poets we will be playing back and running through it in a spatial audio array.

How I see this fitting into music creation as a whole is having trained and intuitive FX chains that are run through automation. Presently it seems that AI programs are being trained to work with composers to take parts of the composition they may or may not typically focus on and expand those through following the users typical choice patterns.

In my own practice I see machine learning potentials being the integration of smart panning protocols which allow me to have the panning automation I construct through code, and also manually play be mapped out by a program rather than the individual panning protocols I apply to each instrument or movement of a work.

I would like to work with an AI that could translate selected frequencies into poetic text, spoken messages, or “lyrics” based on the writings of many critical theorists and poets who’s work I often reference in my praxis. 

As an artist who focuses on abstractions rather than in a more discernible sung lyric song structure direct messages do not make it into my compositions and this could be a way to apply those abstracted principles and find new avenues of entry to this realm of personal interest.

More about Chloe Alexandra Thompson

Written in collaboration with Mutek Montreal 2019.  Learn more about Mutek and their ongoing series of global events.

The post Can Music and AI Coexist? Predictions from 8 Mutek Artists appeared first on LANDR Blog.

from LANDR Blog https://blog.landr.com/music-ai-coexist-mutek-2019/ via https://www.youtube.com/user/corporatethief/playlists from Steve Hart https://stevehartcom.tumblr.com/post/187170313209

[makingscipub]

Science and poetry: Effing the ineffable

A couple of weeks ago, Phil Moriarty sent me a poem and a piece of music about (un)certainty ahead of an afternoon of science and poetry on 29 April here at the University of Nottingham.

Travelling through cultures

This made me think about science and literature, a topic of endless fascination about which countless people have written, not least the British novelist and scientist C. P. Snow, who claimed in 1959 that the humanities and the sciences were “two cultures”. This started ongoing discussions about the institutional divisions between the arts and the sciences and, also, efforts to overcome them.

Snow first wrote about ‘the two cultures’ in 1956, in an article for the New Statesman. This means that I have lived with that division all my life. For half of my life I have also been trundling forwards and backwards between two (overlapping) cultures, the British and the German one. For half of my life I have been speaking German and for the other half English. And finally, for about twenty years I have been a humanities person and for the last two decades I have become enchanted by science.

I have now got a thoroughly mingled linguistic and cultural identity, especially delighting in the work of people past and present who bring the sciences and the arts together.

Effing the ineffable

So, sitting, yet again, on a plane to Germany I thought: What do science and poetry do that make them both so exceptional that people not only think about these activities separately but also feel propelled to combine and compare them? I came to the conclusion that things are actually quite simple (they probably are not): science and poetry try to and sometimes manage to ‘eff’ the ‘ineffable’; that’s all. They make the ineffable effable.

The word ‘ineffable’ refers to something that cannot be expressed or described in language, is too great for words, transcends expression, is unspeakable, unutterable, inexpressible (see Oxford English Dictionary). While looking up ‘ineffable’, I found to my surprise that the word ‘effable’, now archaic, was used in 1668 by John Wilkins, one of the founders of the Royal Society, in his Essay towards a Real Character and a Philosophical Language. So I am in good company.

But how do scientists and artists make things ‘effable’? They do that in quite similar ways (whatever similar means here), namely by observing, thinking (which can entail hypothesising) and experimenting. Of course, experimenting might mean something quite different in science and in poetry and in various sciences and through the ages, but it’s just trying things out and seeing what works (and comparing results with existing work, genres, theories etc.). In science this process has been systematised in parts (what some call the ‘scientific method’, about which quite a few poems and even songs have been written).

Imagination and Bildung

Both in science and art, ‘effing’ relies on our imagination (Einbildungskraft), passion and enthusiasm. Imagination, not just ‘cool reason‘, makes science and art happen, in whatever shape and form, and with it culture and with that what I call Bildung, a word that resonates, at least in the German culture, with imagination (image = Bild). Both art and science ‘imagine the world’, as the title of this year’s Hay Festival proclaims.

In modern culture a huge danger looms and that is the steady erosion of the imagination and of Bildung (or, as Athene Donald wrote ‘a rounded education) in favour of a utilitarian approach to the appliance of science and and the arts for mainly monetary ends. This contradicts the ideal of Bildung favoured by Wilhelm von Humbold, one of my favourite philosophers, linguists and education experts.

Humboldt favoured an approach to education (and, one could say, public engagement with science and the arts), based on the ideal of Bildung. For him, Bildung can only flourish under conditions that allow citizens to immerse themselves in “a manifold of situations” (eine Mannigfaltigkeit der Situationen)”. This enables them “to enter freely into relationships of association and cooperation with one another, because, Humboldt argued, humans can realize their potential as individuals only in society.” Focusing on impact or, worse still, closing down humanities and social science departments threatens such flourishing, as much as it endangers science and society.

Science Rhymes

So it’s a relief to find that this week here at the University of Nottingham, citizens, be they scientists, artists or whatever could come together to explore science and poetry on the occasion of Science Rhymes. This event was organised by Gerardo Adesso who is Professor of Mathematical Physics and writes poems for the leading physics journal Physical Review Letters (see here). It was part of the Nottingham Poetry Festival. Here is some more background about how the event came about. Here are some of the acts.

There were poems on the complexity of the human body by a computational biologist, on the brain by a computational neuroscientist, a poem using AI and read by a machine (which was very weird), a poem on the Fibonacci sequence (entitled ‘Fib Fib’) and on interdisciplinarity, on supercold atoms, on quantum thermodynamics, a poem celebrating the invention and inventor of Ibuprofen. Some poems rhymed, some didn’t, some experimented with words and letters in ways that reminded me of Dadaism. The introduction and transitions between the performances were poetically delivered by Gerardo who was a lively  and enthusiastic host.

Knowledge and metaphors

This all made me think about metaphors. What struck me was that science poems are like metaphors. You can only understand them if you know stuff about or have experience of the source domain. Metaphors map ‘knowledge’ from a source domain (say, war) onto a target domain (say, illness), a process that then produces utterances like “I am still fighting off the flu”. Normally, our everyday knowledge of the world allows us to understand such metaphors. There are limits to understanding, however, which are set by knowledge shared or not between the speaker and the hearer (this becomes more extreme when one of the interlocutors knows more about something or has detailed knowledge of very different things).

I once used the following metaphor in talk I gave in Germany: “This is pop tart philosophy”. My muesli-eating audience did not ‘get’ it. They had never eaten a ‘pop tart’ (not something that I would recommend). Some told me afterwards that I should not have used the word ‘tart’….

I felt a bit like the non-pop-tart eaters when listening to some of the science poems. I got the rhymes and the rhythms, the world play and the puns, but I sometimes didn’t quite understand the whole, as I lacked detailed knowledge of, say, the Fibonacci sequence. However, poems dealing with human experience of science were more easy to decode, such as this one by Gerardo Adesso:

“Trabalho e Calor (Work & Heat): Quantum Thermodynamics is the science Of work, heat, and energy exchange At very small scales Where the laws of classical physics break down Like social inhibitions In a group of scientists with free-flowing beer […]”

This does not mean that metaphors and poems are not important. The absolutely are – and the audience with their expert knowledge enjoyed them all.

I’ll end with a quote from a great article on science and poetry by Ruth Padel, which makes one of the most important points about science and poetry: “poetry and science have more in common than revealing secrets. Both depend on metaphor, which is as crucial to scientific discovery as it is to lyric. A new metaphor is a new mapping of the world. Even maths uses metaphor; and this is where more condensed forms of poetry join in.”

Science and poetry imagine and map our worlds. They make worlds; they make us; and we make them. Poems also bring people together across the world, as expressed in this quantum love song by Phil Moriarty.

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