duets-in-latent-space

duets in latent space

performance + creative coding + generative AI + sound + concept by marlon barrios solano’

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This is the unseeable space in which machine learning makes its meaning. Beyond that which we are incapable of visualizing is that which we are incapable of even understanding. - James Bridle

Latent space, in the realm of machine learning and artificial intelligence, refers to a high-dimensional abstract space where data’s intrinsic, hidden features are represented in a compressed form. This space is particularly significant in the context of generative models, such as Generative Adversarial Networks (GANs) and transformers, where it serves as the groundwork for the models to learn, encode, and manipulate the underlying patterns of the data they’re trained on. By navigating through this latent space, these models can generate new instances of data that, while reflective of the learned patterns, are distinct and original.

“Duets in Latent Space,” is a live collaboration between the artist — situated before a laptop — and machine learning models and their enigmatic latent space. Through various forms of input, whether they be movements, sounds, or digital interactions, the AI responds in kind, generating visual, auditory, or textual outputs that are played back in real time.

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“Duets in Latent Space” is conceived as a lecture-performance interacting with web apps programmed by the artist, attempting to make tangible the remembered, the affective and the speculative. It combines a series of vignettes, story-telling, interfaces, software, movement scores and re-performances, weaving trajectories of cybernetics, time travel, queer longing, recursion and migrations with algorithmic playfulness.

These interactions forge semantic and action landscapes that delve into the deep, unseen dimensions of data, cultural memory and language. By reversing the hegemonic narratives of generative AI and manipulating inputs, actions, and prompts, I navigate the AI models’ generative processes exploring their emancipatory potential, forging unique cognitive recombinations with evolving texts, images, and soundscapes set within the ethereal spaces of desire, affect, memory, longing and hybrid materiality.

Central to this project are several technologies: p5.js, enabling creative coding in the browser; Next.js, for rendering server-side React applications; machine learning models for hangs gesture and body movement recognition; humansLarge Language Models (LLMs), offering extensive capabilities for generating human-like text; and Generative Adversarial Networks (GANs), known for producing highly realistic images. These technologies underpin the performance, emphasizing REAL-TIME dynamic interactions that highlight the creative and epistemic challenges of generative AI.

Duration from 25 to 45 minutes adjusted to the context and venue.

It has been presented at:

-. Hybrid Bienalle @Hellerau, Dresden, Germany October 26th 2024

-. ICA 2024 Live Arts festival in Cape Town, Sourt Africa Sept 5th 2024.

-. Generative AI, Arts and Ethics, think-tank at Chateau de Fey, France March 5th of March 2024.

-. ACCAD Future Tech The Ohio Stare University OSU Dance (Online) February 22nd 2024.

-. Unfinished Fridays @ Berlin Lake Studios February 23rd 2024.

It can be adapted to be presented as installation-performances, installations, online apps and as in-person and online lecture-performance.

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Nodes or Vignetes

Walking in an Exagerated Manner Around the Perimeter of a Square

Video

Bruce Nauman’s video performance Walking in an Exaggerated Manner Around the Perimeter of a Square (1967-68) served as a template for my exploration of what is considered canonical or a model. I use the square as a metaphor for inhabiting the alien—performing the alienation that stands in contrast to the normative, disciplined body. By exaggerating movement, Marlon interrogates the boundaries of conceptual experimentation, viewing it through the lens of white privilege. This perspective calls attention to how certain bodies and practices are excluded or marginalized within the same conceptual frameworks that define avant-garde art, subtly critiquing the institutionalization of experimentalism as an exclusive realm of white privilege. It represents the internalized latent space as an square.

Canonical (memory warmup/accumulation in Space and time))

Mr Parker (in progress)

“I was 8. A Sunday, warm. We went to Mr. Parker’s house. My grandmother’s boss. He was from Texas, she said. A big place, far off. Didn’t know much about it. Only the name. Texas. He worked for La Creole. The oil company. My grandmother, self-taught in English, had worked her way up to this. Proud.

We found him in the back. He was working on a boat. A wooden boat. He called us over, us kids. The boat wasn’t finished. Pieces of wood, scattered. He wasn’t wearing much. A sleeveless shirt. Arms bare, skin pale. Pink in places, burnt from the sun. His hair, blonde, messy. He looked at me. “Marlon, look at this.” His voice, low. He showed me the wood, how he was fitting it together. I nodded, but I wasn’t watching the wood. I watched him. His arms, his hands. The way his skin looked, almost glowing in the sun. The way he spoke. English. Not just words, but something else. I didn’t understand. Couldn’t. But I listened. It was like hearing something far off. A place I didn’t know.

He switched to Spanish. Slow, deliberate, the words thick with his “ gringo” accent. Clumsy, but sweet. He tried. It made me smile. Made me feel something, though I didn’t know what. There was a rhythm in the air. Something I couldn’t name. Not then. I just stood there, listening. The heat of the Venezuelan sun, his voice, the way he looked at me. Like I was the only one there.

Goosebumps rose on my arms, even though it was warm. He smiled. I remember that. And the sound of his voice. And something else, something like seeing a shadow before it arrives. Like knowing what’s coming, even if you don’t have the words for it yet. It was all there, in his voice, in the way he spoke. I couldn’t see the boat. Couldn’t see anything else. Just him. The way his arms moved, the way his skin flushed under the sun. The words didn’t matter. I didn’t understand it all, but I didn’t need to. It stayed with me.

Quiet. Waiting. Mr. Parker, from Texas.”

Extraordinary Alien

Entropic Haiku

Conversations with a Possible Mind

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https://github.com/marlonbarrios/duets-in-latent-space/assets/90220317/916290b2-f48f-4f96-844c-c17d0b2be14c

In Pursuit of Stolen Ghosts (DRAWING TOOL VERSION)

Bauhaus Time Traveller

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Bauhaus Time Traveller STRIPPERS

Impossible Simplicity

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In Pursuit of Stolen Ghosts (GENERATIVE-INTERACTIVE VERSION AND BROWN COLORS)

Hyper-elements in Latent Space (Autonomous Duet)

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Pulling Molecules

A Hand is four relationships

The Body of the Text

Remembering Steve Paxton (1939-2024)

Developed at Art and Research Residency at Lake Studios Berlin February 2024

MIT License

Copyright (c) 2024 Marlon Barrios Solano

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The above copyright notice and this permission notice shall be included in all copies or substantial portions of the Software.

THE SOFTWARE IS PROVIDED “AS IS”, WITHOUT WARRANTY OF ANY KIND, EXPRESS OR IMPLIED, INCLUDING BUT NOT LIMITED TO THE WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTABILITY, FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE AND NONINFRINGEMENT. IN NO EVENT SHALL THE AUTHORS OR COPYRIGHT HOLDERS BE LIABLE FOR ANY CLAIM, DAMAGES OR OTHER LIABILITY, WHETHER IN AN ACTION OF CONTRACT, TORT OR OTHERWISE, ARISING FROM, OUT OF OR IN CONNECTION WITH THE SOFTWARE OR THE USE OR OTHER DEALINGS IN THE SOFTWARE.