For this performance, I set up my guitar on stage, next to an amp of immeasurable volume. I never touch it. I grip my phone, which is displaying Tiktok. Sitting on the floor, I scroll to my doom through a mix of today’s agenda; user-created material, news clippings and especially acapellas — people screaming their souls out.

My guitar hears their screams through its pick-ups, as well as magnetic interference created when data is transmitted, from world to phone and back again. Using various pedal techniques, I find moments of bliss within their voices, extend them, loop fragments. The act of filtering and merging these clips creates a degree of separation between the original Tiktoks and the viewer, lending the content new significance.

The process is inherently live, with each audience experiencing a different selection of TikToks, as chosen by the algorithm. The nature of each piece — its progression, textures and feel — are completely undetermined until the very moment the audience experiences it, until the algorithm decides our fate. It evolves in front of us.

The piece represents the ambience of now. As I sit on a bus, any calm blank space in my mind is carved up by the sudden stop/start of harsh, distorted video fragments, as someone scrolls to their doom, through Tiktok. I feel compelled to use this ever-present background noise as raw material for my music. A chorus of voices from people spread the world over.

New tracks tagged #onlinechorus