A pianist, a guitarist, two readers, and a bot meet online for a live performance. As delays build and propagate throughout the network, they collectively generate a live-score over which a foreign speaker and native speaker enunciate, whose compressed voices are then analysed and transcribed by a bot in search of meaning. The certainty in algorithms clashes against the uncertainty in human speech.
As humans, we often follow instincts and gut feelings. Sometimes, with little confidence or awareness, but we decide to do it anyway. In You Are 99% Likely to See this Show, humans, and machines perform together. The software bots are constantly analysing musicians’ pitch and the readers’ speech, looking for patterns, and breaking the spoken word into elemental phonemes. When the algorithms are over 90% confident in their assessment, they transcribe it to a live graphic and text-based score for humans to interact with—creating room for improvisation, exposing levels of confidence, and reinterpreting meaning in the process.
Bangkok-born, New York-based Tiri Kananuruk is a sound and performance artist. She holds a BA in Exhibition Design from Chulalongkorn University in Bangkok, and a Master in Interactive Telecommunications from Tisch School of the Arts at New York University. Her work has been shown internationally in Thailand, Iceland, the Philippines as well as in New York City at Culture Hub, Roulette Intermedium, Judson Memorial Church, The Firehouse Space Brooklyn, and Babycastles. She was a New Media Art artist in residence at Mana Contemporary in 2019, and is currently an artist in residence at CultureHub, New York. She is the co-founder of NUUM collective along with Mimi Yin and NiNi Dongnier. Her work explores the manipulation of sound in the context of technological consumerism, examining human relationships through the use of transmitted signals, natural language processing, and bodily movement.
In this performance Kananuruk is joined by Sebastian Morales (lead creative technologist), Katya Rozanova (reader), Kengchakaj Kengkarnka (piano), Julphan Tilapornputt (guitar).