What is it like to collaborate with yourself? Weaver finds one answer to this question in Control Yourself, working with a bespoke AI music tool trained on a simple, sung melody. The piece opens with this training melody and quickly branches off into various sonic scenes for the resulting AI to exist within. The tool (affectionately dubbed ‘AI-Lexis’ by the artist) works within strict parameters, blurting out almost-intelligible words; visceral utterings which convey emotion beyond human language.

This series of excerpts features sounds generated from word prompts such as "insects," "hissing," "trains," "aeroplanes," and a new melodic prompt called "alxsv2" to transform the original sung material. 

This piece was composed in collaboration with Koup Music, an AI-powered music tool built by Kopi Su Studio. It was originally commissioned by the Sydney Opera House for Outlines Festival in July 2023 as part of a live performance piece called Sonic Mutations developed with Kopi Su and Rowan Savage (Salllvage).

Photography by Sydney Opera House. 

Full track on Bandcamp: https://alexismarieweaver.bandcamp.com/

Control Yourself (2023) AI Exploration with Koup Music

What is it like to collaborate with yourself? Weaver finds one answer to this question in Control Yourself, working with a bespoke AI sound-generation tool trained on a simple sung melody. The piece opens with this training melody and quickly branches off into various sonic scenes for the resulting AI to exist within. The tool (affectionately dubbed ‘AI-Lexis’ by the artist) works within strict parameters, blurting out almost-intelligible words; visceral utterings which convey emotion beyond human language. This work first premiered as a live performance for the Sydney Opera House's Outlines livestream series in July 2023, and has since been converted to a fixed media work. 

A huge thanks to Koup Music, Kopi Su Studios, and the Sydney Opera House for funding the original project.

Excerpt 3: Hissing

Excerpt 2: Alxsv2

Excerpt 1: Insects

Follow me on Bandcamp! https://alexismarieweaver.bandcamp.com/follow_me

Alexis Weaver is an electroacoustic composer based in Sydney, Australia, who is trying to make some less serious stuff these days. 

She fuses her classical music education with the ever-expanding area of music technology to create adventurous, whimsical acousmatic and radiophonic works. She has composed soundtracks for animation, film, short stories, radio, theatre and dance.

I live and create on Gadigal and Wangal Land.

Photo @kopi_su_studios

Control Yourself (2023) AI Exploration with Koup Music

Alexis Marie Weaver