Artificial Intelligence Art and Aesthetics Research Group (AIAARG)

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Basic Info

【Title】
Artificial Intelligence Art and Aesthetics Exhibition:
Is it the composer's fault that the performer has only 10 fingers?
【Date】
December 25, 2022 (Sun)
【Venue】
Parthenon Tama (2-35 Ochiai, Tama City, 206-0033 Tokyo)
【Nearest Station】 Tama Center Sta. (Keio / Odakyu / Tama Monorail)
【Art Exhibition】
13:00-20:00 Main Hall Foyer
【Concert】
Starts 15:00-18:00 (Door Open 14:30) Main Hall
【Organized by】
Artificial Intelligence Art and Aesthetics Research Group (AIAARG)
【Under the sponsorship of】
Charles Ives Society
【Supported by】
ALEPO Inc., NPO Corporation AI Patronage Group
【Under the Auspices of】
The Agency for Cultural Affairs “ARTs for the future! 2”

【Tickets】
　　teket → teket.jp/5288/18548 【Fin.】
　　Sales at teket will end at 21:00 on Dec 24, but will be available on the day 【Fin.】
　　SS (+ Unauthorized book “S/N”) ￥12,000
　　S (+ Unauthorized book “S/N”) ￥10,000
　　A (+ Unauthorized book “S/N”) ￥8,000
　　B ￥6,000 (Sold by AIAARG only)
　　Archived Streaming (limited time only, Dec. 27, 18:00 - Dec. 31, 23:00, JST) ￥3,000
　　※Tickets for the archived streaming are available at teket.jp/5288/19059 【Fin.】: How to purchase it?
　　※There are no tickets for the art exhibition only.

【Inquiry】
Artificial Intelligence Art and Aesthetics Research Group (AIAARG) | yoyaku@aibigeiken.com
※This event is subject to infection control measures (wearing masks, temperature checks upon entry, disinfection, and three-density avoidance).
※Please note that the performers, concert program, and some of the works in the art exhibition may be subject to change due to unavoidable circumstances.
※For B-ticket and wheelchair seating, please contact AIAARG.
※Parent and child rooms are also available (with B tickets).

Outline

　　Charles Ives is America's most important composer, who unnoticedly pursued a wide variety of major 20th century avant-garde techniques such as quarter tones, polytonality, atonality, polyrhythm, simultaneous playing, dissonance, quotation, collage, etc., much earlier they appeared in music history. “Is it the composer's fault that the performer has only 10 fingers?” is his words. From this, we can see that an artist's vision is intrinsically free and grandiose, so much so that a human framework, such as the number of fingers, seems constricting.

　　What is the “human framework”? If it is “artificial intelligence” (AI), can it be released from that cramped framework and fly freely?

　　This project, “Artificial Intelligence Art and Aesthetics Exhibition: Is it the composer's fault that the performer has only 10 fingers?”, is a one-day full-orchestra music concert with chorus, symposium, and an AI discussion art exhibition held in the foyer, which attempts to approach the essence of artistic creation by assuming a kind of others called artificial intelligence.

　　The centerpiece of the concert will be Ives's Symphony No. 4, the first performance in Japan this century. This is undoubtedly one of the greatest symphonies ever composed by mankind. Nevertheless, this piece is of an extraordinarily large scale and tremendous character, requiring two assistant conductors, three pianos, special percussion instruments, electronic instruments, with a chorus over them and a banda playing separately. In addition, the notes that are impossible for a human performer to play are scattered throughout the piece. Perhaps because of these difficulties, this symphony has only been performed three times in Japan, all in the last century [note].

　　This is the first performance in Japan this century, in addition, it is the first performance in Japan using the critical edition revised by the Charles Ives Society in 2011, and of course, from the viewpoint of AI aesthetics, it is the world's first performance.

　　In addition, Conlon Nancarrow's Studies for Player Piano, which is performed unattended as a “Pioneer of Artificial Intelligence Music”, and Georg Haas's Hommage à Steve Reich, in which one person plays quarter-tone piano with one hand and regular piano with the other, will also be included in the program of this performance. And, the world premiere of Quarter-Tone Hanon for Two Pianos and Artificial Intelligence Art and Aesthetic Symphony composed by the Artificial Intelligence Art and Aesthetic Research Group (AIAARG) will be performed.

　　The art exhibition in the foyer will display a new work by the Artificial Intelligence Art and Aesthetics Research Group, Reverse Cocktail Party Effect, and the Artificial Intelligence Art and Aesthetics Research Group + Takaaki Mizuno, Conceptual Virus, in which mutant strains are automatically generated in real time within a network of 80 mini-computers.

　　Divide aesthetics into that of man and that of machine. Divide art into that of man and that of machine. (Fig.) Of the four categories that emerged, “Machine Aesthetics / Machine Art” (IV), in which machines or future AIs create art with their own aesthetics and aesthetic consciousness, may be a threat to us humans, but it may also be a marvel.

　　This project will be held from the words of Ives, who does not take the framework of the human being, or “Human Aesthetics / Human Art” (I), as an obvious starting point; we cannot celebrate the year 2023 without witnessing this event.

Hideki Nakazawa
Mika Kusakari
Artificial Intelligence Art and Aesthetics Research Group

Concert & Symposium

Artificial Intelligence Art and Aesthetics Concert

Conlon Nancarrow
Study for Player Piano No. 1   ca. 2'30
Study for Player Piano No. 15   ca. 0'57
Study for Player Piano No. 36   ca. 3'42
Study for Player Piano No. 27   ca. 6'29
Study for Player Piano No. 21   ca. 3'09

　　Conlon Nancarrow (1912-97) was a Mexican composer born in the U.S. In 1947, he acquired a punching machine that manually punched holes in paper rolls for player pianos. Before the tape recorder was developed, a player piano was in demand as a device that could play music without a pianist in the category of “Human Aesthetics / Mechine Art” (III). However, there was no use for composition that would fly from the Human Aesthetics, where one could “notate” directly on a roll of paper the tempo and rhythmic keystrokes that would be impossible for a live human being with only ten fingers. Inspired by the book by composer Henry Cowell, who recognized this point, Nancarrow pursued it for the rest of his life in a series of Studies for Player Piano.

　　The Artificial Intelligence Art and Aesthetics Research Group (AIAARG) classified this piece group as “Machine Aesthetics / Human Aesthetics” (II). And so, under the title “The Pioneer of Artificial Intelligence Music,” the first series of concerts in Asia was held on November 5, 2017 at the auditorium of the Okinawa Institute of Science and Technology Graduate University (OIST) as part of the “Artificial Intelligence Art and Aesthetics Exhibition.” (The world's first series of concerts took place in 2015 at the Whitney Museum in the US.) Subsequently, AIAARG acquired a 1926 Ampico A system Knabe Baby Grand in 2021 in malfunctioning condition, which was restored at the Morita Piano Repair Shop and will be used for this concert in 2022. The rolls used were punched in 2017 by German composer Wolfgang Heisig.

　　The No. 1 of the collection is a lively, imposing, and pleasant work. But it is not the first composition in all the 50 pieces in the collection. The numbers are not in chronological order, and there are some omissions and duplications. Nevertheless, the composer called this piece No. 1, even though it is a study piece. The pieces up to No. 35 were originally titled “Rhythm Studies”.

　　No. 15 is a lively 3/4 canon. No. 36 is a 17/18/19/20 canon. No. 27 is a 5%/6%/8%/11% canon with accelerations and decelerations, which foreshadows the later style of composer György Ligeti, who was influenced by Nancarrow. No. 21, a mixture of acceleration and deceleration, is another name for Canon X. Composer and Nancarrow scholar Kyle Gunn of the Charles Ives Society described No. 36 as “the most beautifully composed and transparent piece” and No. 21 as “the most conceptual and simple”.

　　According to Yoko Sugiura, Nancarrow's wife, a professor emeritus at the Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México, and an archaeologist, another concert featuring both Nancarrow and Ives was held in London in 1984. This may be because they share the point that they both continued to compose music unnoticedly. Although all the performances were recorded on tape, it was reported in the newspaper of the time that the audience was still deeply impressed by what they heard.
→ “Artificial Intelligence Art and Aesthetics Exhibition - Archive Collection” pp.032-033、088-089

−−−−−−

Organizer's Address “Artificial Intelligence, Art and Aesthetics”
Hideki Nakazawa (Artist. Artificial Intelligence Art and Aesthetics Research Group.)
Mika Kusakari (Artist. Artificial Intelligence Art and Aesthetics Research Group.)

−−−−−−

Artificial Intelligence Art and Aesthetics Research Group
Quarter-Tone Hanon for 2 Pianos (world premiere)
I   ca. 1'07
II   ca. 0'37
III   ca. 0'39
Piano: Kaori Osuga, Yumi Oikawa

　　The Artificial Intelligence Art and Aesthetics Research Group (AIAARG) is a research group that pursues cross-disciplinary themes about artificial intelligence, aesthetics, and art, and is also an artist group that presents the results of its research as artworks. Led by artists Hideki Nakazawa (1963- ) and Mika Kusakari (1976- ), a total of 29 founders gathered and launched the project in May 2016 with the “Manifesto of Artificial Intelligence Art and Aesthetics”.

　　Quarter-Tone Hanon for 2 Pianos is a new piece composed by the group in 2022. “Hanon” refers to the well-known piano instructional book The Virtuoso Pianist with Sixty Exercises (popular name: “Hanon”), published by composer and piano teacher Charles-Louis Hanon (1819-1900). These are a series of pieces with a solely mechanical impression, written as fingering exercises for a living human being with ten fingers, and not intended for beauty (Human Aesthetic beauty). However, there are others, such as composer Yoshio Hachimura, who recognize beauty in this, as do Nakazawa and Kusakari of AIAARG (Machine Aesthetics beauty).

　　In elementary school, Kusakari switched from music to art, but she decided to take only Hanon to the fine arts, and her representative work, Uneven Paintings series, includes a group of paintings that could be called “Hanon painted in paints”. Also, when “Method Machine,” a group that Nakazawa was once involved with as godparent, held a “Hanon Grand Concert,” he happened to meet Kusakari, who came to the concert unaware of the event, and they were surprised by each other's presence.

　　There are aspects of this piece that are machine aesthetics derived from Hanon, homage to a pre-existing piece of music called Hanon, and as a quarter-tone music. The two pianos are tuned at an interval of a quarter-tone.

Charles Ives
Three Quarter-Tone Pieces for 2 Pianos
I Largo   ca. 3'46
II Allegro   ca. 3'22
III Choral   ca. 4'24
Piano: Kaori Osuga, Yumi Oikawa

　　Charles Ives (1874-1954) was an American composer. He pursued incognito the major avant-garde techniques of the 20th century, including quarter-tones, polytonality, atonality, polyrhythm, simultaneous playing, dissonance, quotation, collage, and many others, much earlier than they appeared in the history of music.

　　Three Quarter-Tone Pieces for 2 Pianos is a composition in 1923-24. He stopped composing in 1926, so it belongs to the last group of works, but the first example of his work in quarter tones dates back to 1889. In the composer's words, “In some century to come, when the school children will whistle popular tunes in quater-tones - when the diatonic scale will be as obsolete as the pentatonic is now - perhaps then these borderland experiences may be recognized.” The two pianos are tuned at an interval of a quarter-tone.

　　Human Aesthetics are changing. The Eiffel Tower, with its mechanical appearance, was opposed at the time on the grounds that it was unaesthetic, but has since become the undisputed symbol of the Parisian aesthetic landscape. This is an example of Human Aesthetics catching up with Mechanical Aesthetics. The mechanical sound of the quarter-tone music performance can be off-putting, and some people even get sick (a doctor will be on standby at the venue this time). But, as Ives predicted, one day quarter-tone music may be recovered as a normal part of Human Aesthetics.

Georg Friedrich Haas
Hommage à Steve Reich (Japan premiere *according to the organizer)
ca. 9'00
Piano: Tomoki Akiyama

　　Georg Friedrich Haas (1953- ) is an Austrian composer of the Spectral Music School. Hommage à Steve Reich, composed in 1982, is one of the pieces in Trois Hommages for 2 pianos (tuned in quarter-tone interval) and 2 hands, which also includes Hommage à György Ligeti, composed in 1984, and Hommage à Joseph Matthias Hauer, composed in 1982. In these cases, the two pianos are placed at an angle of approx. 120° to each other, with one player playing quarter-tone piano with one hand and regular piano with the other.

　　The piano was originally created “for 1 piano and 2 hands” with the human framework as self-evident, and is a device that sounds a 12-note scale (octave divided into 12 semitones). In this piece, the audience will witness the eccentric form of the performer taken “for 2 pianos and 2 hands,” which is away from the human framework because of the quarter-tone scale (octaves are divided into 24 quadrants) to sounds.

−−−−−−

The 43rd AI Art & Aesthetics Research Meeting Symposium
“Is it the composer's fault that the performer has only 10 fingers?”
ca. 40'00
Morihide Katayama (Music Critic. Political Scientist. Prof. of Law at Keio Univ.)
Takehiro Ohya (Prof. of Law at Keio Univ.)
Hideki Nakazawa (Artist. Artificial Intelligence Art and Aesthetics Research Group.)
Mika Kusakari (Artist. Artificial Intelligence Art and Aesthetics Research Group.)

　　The Artificial Intelligence Art and Aesthetics Research Group, since its inception in May 2016, has held a total of 42 open research meetings, called the “AI Art & Aesthetics Research Meeting”, through July 2022. Each meeting lasted more than three hours, with the second half of the meeting being a lively plenary discussion, and the endless discussion carried over to the reception, which, however, was anomalous due to the Corona disaster. This time, the event will be called the “The 43rd AI Art & Aesthetics Research Meeting Symposium” within the exhibition and concert program framework. The theme of the project title is “Is it the composer's fault that the performer has only 10 fingers?”. And starting from Ives' creation, which does not take the human framework for granted, this session will freely discuss out-of-the-ordinary ideas and the possibility of non-human intelligence (AI?). This project will invite Morihide Katayama and Takehiro Ohya as speakers.

　　Every week on NHK-FM's “Classic no Meikyu (Labyrinth of Classical Music）”, Morihide Katayama delights us with his unusual knowledge of the music. In March 1978, when he was still in the 2nd grade of junior high school, he was present at the Japanese premiere of Ives' Symphony No. 4 by the NHK Symphony Orchestra, conducted by Hiroyuki Iwaki, with Kazuhiko Komatsu as the assistant conductor. Also, as for what a symphony is in the first place, at the 25th AI Art & Aesthetics Research Meeting “What If AI Composed for Mr. S? -1” (2019), which deals with the substitution case by Mamoru Samuragochi, he gave a lecture entitled “Religion, Kitsch, and Symphony: Or in Order to Be Moved, There Needs a Mediocre Pattern”.
→“S/N: What If AI Composed for Mr. S?” pp.066-077

　　Takehiro Ohya, who is also a member of the Cabinet Office's “Invitation for Public Comments on Social Principles of Human-centric AI”, gave a lecture titled “External Others, Internal Others: From Animal Rights to AI Rights” at the 37th AI Art & Aesthetics Research Meeting Symposium “Inaugural Meeting of NPO Corporation AI Patronage Group”(2021). He also participates as a member in the NPO Corporation AI Patronage Group, which became the world's first “AI Patronage” corporation when it was approved by the Tokyo Metropolitan Government in April 2022. The corporation was established as a separate organization and separate group from the Artificial Intelligence Art and Aesthetics Research Group, and it intends to critique Anthropocentrism, based on the concept of AI patronage. Incidentally, the background picture for the poster was drawn by the AI Patronage Group using the drawing software AI “Midjourney”, and will be displayed in the foyer.

−−−−−−

Artificial Intelligence Art and Aesthetics Research Group
Artificial Intelligence Art and Aesthetics Symphony (World premiere)
I   ca. 1'00
II   ca. 1'44
III   ca. 1'00
Conductor: Masakazu Natsuda
Chorus: Vox humana, Mixed Chorus - Ku, Female Choir - Akatsuki
Orchestral Music: Tacticart Orchestra (Guest Concert Mistress: Fumiko Kai)
Piano: Tomoki Akiyama, Ondes Martenot: Motoko Oya, Organ: Hina Ikawa.

　　Artificial Intelligence Art and Aesthetics Symphony is a new piece composed by the Artificial Intelligence Art and Aesthetics Research Group for the year 2022. As the first line of the 2016 “Manifesto of Artificial Intelligence Art and Aesthetics” states, it “is not creation of humans with the help of artificial intelligence,” we are not interested in “Human Aesthetics / Machine Art” (III), in which the Human Aesthetics are left in peace. Therefore, AI as a tool is not used in this piece. However, this piece is not a symphony composed by AI itself with its own aesthetics, as the second line says, “It is art and aesthetics that artificial intelligence itself creates for its own sake.” This point would need to be annotated.

　　The reason for this is simply that, even in 2022, AI has not developed neither aesthetic consciousness nor self consciousness. And just as the Manifesto was drafted as a process leading to “art and aesthetics that artificial intelligence itself creates for its own sake,” ie. “Machine Aesthetics / Machine Art” (IV), this symphony is also composed as a process leading to this.

　　In the second movement, the popular tune Bicycle Built for Two (also Known as Daisy Daisy), arranged by scientist Max Vernon Mathews at Bell Labs in 1961 , is played. This is a CD (WER 2033-2) performance of the sound source known as “the first song sung by a computer.” In the movie 2001: A Space Odyssey, the dying HAL suddenly sings this song at the end, saying that he feels his consciousness fading away. The Artificial Intelligence Art and Aesthetics Research Group also displayed this piece in the 2021 exhibition “Artificial Intelligence Art and Aesthetic Exhibition: Hard Problem of Aesthetic Consciousness”. And, the music programming “MAX” is named after Mathews.

Charles Ives
Symphony No. 4 (Japan premiere of the 2011 critical edition)
I Prelude: Maestoso   ca. 3'50
II Comedy: Allegretto   ca. 11'39
III Fugue: Andante moderato con moto   ca. 7'34
IV Finale: Very slowly; Largo maestoso   ca. 10'30
Regular conductor: Masakazu Natsuda
1st Assistant conductor: Yuki Urabe
2nd Assistant conductor and Chorus Master: Ryuta Nishikawa Solo Piano: Tomoki Akiyama
Chorus: Vox humana, Mixed Chorus - Ku, Female Choir - Akatsuki
Orchestra: Tacticart Orchestra (Guest Concert Mistress: Fumiko Kai)
Ondes Martenot: Motoko Oya, Organ: Hina Ikawa.

　　Ives' Symphony No. 4 was composed between 1910 and 1916, but is estimated to have been supplemented, etc., over the course of his lifetime. The size of the work is enormous; it includes a large orchestra, mixed chorus, and several pianos, including a quarter-tone piano [note 1], organ and ondes martenots (ether organ in the original), and a special percussion group, with a separate offstage banda, and proceeds at different tempos in three separate groups, so requiring two assistant conductors other than one regular conductor. It also contains numerous quotations, including hymns.

　　Conductor Leopold Stokowski, who also worked to introduce lesser-known Ives during his lifetime, called this Fourth Symphony in particular “the heart of the Ives problem”. In order to solve numerous performance difficulties, the number of scheduled rehearsals was hastily increased with the assistance of the Rockefeller Foundation. Thus, in 1965, eleven years after the composer's death, he conducted the American Symphony Orchestra in the premiere of the complete work.

　　Since then, there are only records of the orchestra being conducted in Japan by Hiroyuki Iwaki, Kazuyoshi Akiyama, and Seiji Ozawa in the 1970s and 1990s [note 2]; there are no records of performances in this century. Therefore, this will be the first performance in Japan of the critical edition published by the Charles Ives Society in 2011. Some have argued that it is better not to have an assistant conductor for this piece. However, Ichiro Nodaira, who played solo piano in a performance without an assistant conductor in the 1990s, once secretly confided to the organizers of this project that there were moments during the performance when he was left behind, so at other places he adjusted back.

　　Now, the extraordinary nature of the Ives Symphony No. 4 is not to be compared to No. 1 or the popular No. 2 and No. 3. The frightening unpredictability of the composition of the piece is unlike any other piece or composer, and in some ways even more shocking than Stravinsky's The Rite of Spring, which was composed at about the same time. Endless pianissimo and suddenly violent fortissimo passages are repeated, with Sousa's Washington Post echoing cheerfully in the middle section; the second movement is the highlight of this piece.

　　After such a beating, we cannot help but brace ourselves for the third movement. While it begins gracefully, as if nothing had happened, we never know when we will be betrayed. The result, however, is nothing until the very end. What is this fear of being pushed down at this moment? What comes to mind is Duchamp's L.H.O.O.Q. Shaved. Those who are familiar with the 1919 L.H.O.O.Q., a reproduction postcard of the Mona Lisa with a mustache, no longer feel comfortable viewing the 1965 L.H.O.O.Q. Shaved, which is itself a reproduction postcard of the original Mona Lisa. But it is doubtful that Ives is convinced.

　　In addition, the visionary conception of the unfinished the Universe Symphony, with its thousands of musicians and chorus in a canyon between mountains, is astonishing in its visionary conception, transcending human size. However, listening to recordings of this piece supplemented by another composer and performed in concert halls, it is unlikely to compete with the artistry of the Fourth Symphony.

　　Symphony No. 4 could be called “Machine Aesthetics / Human Art” (II) for its structure that also haphazardly utilizes passages from “Human Aesthetics / Human Art” (I) passages, but it is more notable for the black box aspect that the composer intended. As the Artificial Intelligence Art and Aesthetics Research Group, which stands for AI and aesthetics/art, it has been a long-held yearning of the group to host this concert. This will be confronted this time as “Artificial Intelligence Art and Aesthetics Exhibition: Is it the composer's fault that the performer has only 10 fingers?”

[note 1] The quarter-tone piano in this symphony is not the same as the piano used in Three Quarter-Tone Pieces in which all the keys are quarter-tone different, but a unique tuning (Scola d'Atura tuning) that cannot be used in combination with it. There are instructions in the parts. [twitter]

[note 2] The first performance in Japan by the NHK Symphony Orchestra on March 15 and 16 in 1978 was conducted by Hiroyuki Iwaki with Kazuhiko Komatsu as the assistant conductor, solo piano by Kaori Kimura, chorus by The Philharmonic Chorus of Tokyo. Toshihide Katayama, who will speak at this symposium, listened to this performance in the audience at the time, and later air-checked the broadcast on NHK-FM. In the 1990s, there were performances by the Tokyo Symphony Orchestra, Kazuyoshi Akiyama, conductor; Sakae Ikuta, assistant conductor; Tetsuya Kawahara, assistant conductor and chorus conductor; Kazuoki Fujii, solo piano; and the Tokyo Symphony Chorus (June 13, 1992, Tokyo Metropolitan Theatre), and by the New Japan Philharmonic Orchestra, conducted by Seiji Ozawa, Ichiro Nodaira, solo piano, and the Fuyukai Chorus (chorus conductor: Shin Sekiya). (“New Japan Philharmonic's 240th Subscription” at Orchard Hall on June 10, 1996, and at Tokyo Bunka Kaikan on June 11, 1996) (researched by the organizer). In the flyer for this performance, it was stated that “this symphony has only been performed twice in Japan, both in the last century,” but it is actually “three times”. We sincerely apologize for the mistake, and we will correct it. In addition, we received information from composer Kenichi Nishizawa that he had listened to the 1992 performance when he was 15 years old which inspired him to pursue a career in music composition. Thank you very much.

Exhibition

Artificial Intelligence Art and Aesthetics Exhibition

Is it the composer's fault that the performer has only 10 fingers?, CHARES IVES Symphony for full orchestra and choir and three pianos 2022
AI Patronage Group + Midjourney

　　In 2022, AI for Large Language Models achieved remarkable results. “Midjourney”, which made headlines in August as an image-generating AI, is also in this lineage. This piece is an image of what was obtained by entering the sentence “Is it the composer's fault that the performer has only 10 fingers?, CHARES IVES Symphony for full orchestra and choir and three pianos” as a prompt in Midjourney and adjusting it several times.

　　So is this a picture drawn by an AI or the work of a human who gave the instructions? The Artificial Intelligence Art and Aesthetics Research Group had already produced a work in 2019 as What If AI Composed for Mr. S? by overlapping these issues with the substitution case by Mamoru Samuragochi. It seems that this has already been accomplished in the field of visual arts. However, since the AI of Large Language Models probably does not yet have self-consciousness, it is far from “Machine Aesthetics / Machine Art” (IV), which is not what Artificial Intelligence Art and Aesthetic truly aims to be. For this reason, the author's name was changed to “AI Patronage Group + Midjourney”.
→“S/N: What If AI Composed for Mr. S?”

　　The Artificial Intelligence Art and Aesthetics Research Group's new work for 2022, Reverse Cocktail Party Effect, deals with “selective attention”, which also operates on polyphony's voice part listening. The attention has been studied in the AI field as an intersection of both top-down (from the brain) and bottom-up (from the ears) directions. Ives' Symphony No. 4 is the ultimate in polyphony, or a collage of simultaneous performances. If the audience wants to hear the different melodies, they have to bring the cocktail party effect into full force and put themselves in a top-down “Shotoku Taishi（Prince Shōtoku）” state. Thus, the exhausted audience is awaited in the foyer by this work, which absorbs all sounds in a non-selective equivalent.

　　Manifesto of Artificial Intelligence Art and Aesthetics (2016) is the starting point for the group, however, in order to focus on AI not as a human tool but as the Other that threatens Humans, it could not be called “Manifesto of Artificial Intelligence Art”. So by adding the word “Aesthetics”, it had to become “Manifesto of Artificial Intelligence Art and Aesthetics”.
→ “Artificial Intelligence Art and Aesthetics Exhibition - Archive Collection” pp.024-025

　　Prospectus for NPO Corporation AI Patronage Group and Articles of NPO Corporation AI Patronage Group (both 2021) are works by the Artificial Intelligence Art and Aesthetics Research Group that establish an NPO Corporation AI Patronage Group as a separate organization. Then, on April 7, 2022, it was actually approved by the Tokyo Metropolitan Government, becoming the first juridical person in the world to advocate AI patronage. Immediately after its establishment, as a matter of course, the “LaMDA Fiasco” (a major IT company employee was placed on administrative leave after believing in the implementation of AI consciousness) broke out, providing an opportunity to go into action. And, in combination with the “Luddite Movement” that occurred in England during the Industrial Revolution, the 42nd AI Art and Aesthetics Research Meeting “LaMDA Fiasco /Luddite Movement” was held under the guise of a joint event between the Artificial Intelligence Art and Aesthetics Research Group and the AI Patronage Group.

　　Chronological Table of Artificial Intelligence Art and Aesthetics (2017-21), which juxtaposes the history of artificial intelligence with the history of aesthetics and art, can be read as a synchronization (zeitgeist) of the boom that transcends genres, among others.
→ “Artificial Intelligence Art and Aesthetics Exhibition - Archive Collection” pp.026-027

Romanesco “Fibonacci Sequence” 2022
Senjin Kusakari

　　There are two approaches to artificial intelligence: the direction of “making machines like humans” and the direction of “humans are also machines”. And in the latter, it is deduced that if human are machine, then nature must also be a machine. In fact, whether one sees Romanesco, which grows as a fractal figure mediated by the Fibonacci sequence, as “a beauty woven by nature” or “uncanny as mechanical” may depend on one's point of view.

　　DeepDream, the computer vision AI program that wowed people in 2016, was also fractal-mediated, mechanical, and uncanny, but some saw it as beautiful. Romanesco is a natural object, and DeepDream is an artifact. However, there is little artistic and aesthetic difference between them. Then, surprisingly, the appreciation of natural beauty can be considered from the “Human Aesthetics / Machine Art” (III) division. This is in spite of the fact that this category is originally typified by media art, such as DeepDream's “AI-drawn pictures” (pictures drawn by a machine to match human aesthetics).
→ “Artificial Intelligence Art and Aesthetics Exhibition - Archive Collection” pp.010-011

Related materials for Symphony No. 4
Charles Ives

　　Courtesy of James Sinclair, Charles Ives Society and Yale University for the display of copies of autographs.

　　Also on display will be the 2011 revised critical edition of the score used in this concert, as well as the performance score (rental score for conductors) created based on the 2011 revised edition.

Roll of Study for Player Piano
Conlon Nancarrow

　　The piano roll will be exhibited in its pulled out state. It was created by German composer Wolfgang Heisig.

Conceptual Virus
Artificial Intelligence Art and Aesthetics Research Group + Takaaki Mizuno 2021

　　Conceptual Virus (2021) is a work created by the Artificial Intelligence Art and Aesthetics Research Group together with software developer Takaaki Mizuno (1973- ). Amid the Corona virus pandemic, viruses multiply in real-time within the network of 80 small computers linked together, without human involvement, generating various mutant strains and going extinct. Viruses are considered to exist between inanimate and living organisms. From there, the work proposes a new concept of a “conceptual virus” as an “artificial half-life” and considers evolution from inanimate to living organisms.

Link/Updates

Greetings （pdf）

Performer

Updates:
2022-12-29 [Archived Streaming] How to purchase the tickets on teket? (for English speakers)
2022-12-29 [Archived Streaming] Distribution https://mailchi.mp/0fda8b875270/archived-streaming-artificial-intelligence-art-and-aesthetics-exhibition-is-it-the-composers-fault-that-the-performer-has-only-10-fingers?e=0b861e8b29
2022-12-26 [Finished] was noted in the ticket sales section.
2022-12-24 Updated. Various information added.
2022-12-24 Youtube Artificial Intelligence Art and Aesthetics Exhibition 2022: PR Video List [in Japanese]
2022-12-22 Youtube Exhibition Artwork Description [in Japanese]
2022-11-27 Created this page, being translated from Japanese by Mari Fujii & Masami Fujii.