Artist Statement

Theme AI – Generative Subtheme Symbiotic Organizations

Keywords: Mycelium, Symbiosis, Deep Learning, Artificial Intelligence, Electroacoustic Music, Music Composition, Sound Installation, Multimedia Installation, Cloning, Interspecific Interactions

This project aims to take into account the singularity of a mycelium network in a mode of interaction with humans that is based on listening and attention. We are building a setup for the development of sensitive interactions with the mycelium, an organism that facilitates symbioses, through an interpretation of the specificity of its electrical expressions connected to our human musical world.

To build this interaction we will develop AI models to map the behavior of the mycelium, co-compose sounds with the recorded and classified electrical variations and finally build an interspecific and sensitive relationship. This model will attempt to retain the dimension of otherness in sensory interaction. It will share an experimental process that will allow us to enter into a relationship with a non-human organism, to observe its behavior and to adjust our behavior in interaction with it. Thus questioning the notions of intelligence and adaptation in a three-agent human/AI/Mycelium compositional process.

What would be the mycelium’s intelligence compared to that of the human musician and that of the artificial intelligence: what do we mean by this? This installation addresses the importance of recognizing the otherness of non-human beings in the ecological project of caring for the living.

With:

1. SPORA, collectif: https://www.instagram.com/sporastudioo
2. Hugo Scurto, post doctoral student, ArTec https://hugoscurto.com/fr
3. Julien Schuh, Senior lecturer, Université Paris Nanterre https://twitter.com/juleshuchin
4. Guillaume Peureux, Professeur Université Paris Nanterre https://www.parisnanterre.fr/m-guillaume-peureux
5. Stephen Whitmarsh, post doctoral student, ICM https://twitter.com/eegsynth
6. Anne Sèdes, Professeure Université Paris 8, directrice de la MSH Paris Nord https://cv.hal.science/anne-sedes
7. Alain Bonardi, Senior lecturer, HDR Université Paris 8 http://alainbonardi.net
8. David Fierro, PhD student, CICM/MUSIDANSE Université Paris 8

• Diane Schuh (FR) is an experimental landscape-architect, a musician, a composer and an artist. Her PhD thesis, under EDESTA doctoral contract entitled “Symbiosis, milieux, gardens in motion: what the gardener does to music” studies the transfer of models and methods from the garden to composition. Her research explores the pedagogical and operational potential of the symbiosis model in the development of compositional and listening set-ups that invite and encourage attention to the living.