Speaks: with Vicky Clarke
Systems of Automation & Emotion
Free to attend, register via this online form. After 10am on the day of the event, please email Danny at events@music.ox.ac.uk for the Zoom link.
In this talk, Vicky will reflect on the role of systems in her practice, highlighting the tensions between states of technological precision and control versus imagination and material alchemy. Vicky will share research from AURA MACHINE, her two year artist residency exploring Machine Learning and Musique Concrete with NOVARS, University of Manchester in collaboration with PRiSM, RNCM. And her current work in progress, NEURAL MATERIALS, her commission from Cyborg Soloists (University of Holloway/UKRI) where she is developing a performance system for AI, modular electronics and sound sculpture. The talk will provide insight into her methodologies of listening to and composing with AI, curating concrete dataset of materials and post-industrial artefacts, and her visual and sonic ML workflows.
Vicky Clarke is a sound and electronic media artist from Manchester UK, whose work explores materiality, electrical phenomena and ritual and networked cultures. Working with sound sculpture, DIY electronics and human-machine systems, she explores our relationship to technology considering themes of human agency in autonomous systems, post-industrialisation and the techno-emotional states we experience through these interactions. Her work takes the form of composition and live AV performance, DIY machines & sculpture, digital art & research. Vicky won the Oram Award 2020 for innovation in sound and music technology from PRS Foundation and the New BBC Radiophonic Workshop. She produces music under the moniker SONAMB and her debut album, SLEEPSTATES, a 'glitchy experimental techno jerker' (Boomkat) was released in 2022, accompanied by net-art piece SLEEPSTATES.NET exploring machine addiction, sleep territories and sonic algorithmic control. As a solo artist, and previously with her project Noise Orchestra she has performed/exhibited at MUTEK Barcelona and Montreal, CTM Berlin, Q02, STEIM, National Science and Media Museum and Rome Media Art Festival and was a selected artist for the British Council's UK-Russia Year of Music researching sonic AI.
About the Series:
Professor Jennifer Walshe and Professor Martyn Harry convene this online series in which visiting composers discuss their work. Free and open to all.