Björk Composes AI-Assisted Score for NYC Hotel
Björk has created a generative score for the boutique Manhattan hotel Sister City. The score is titled Kórsafan. Björk said in a statement:
“an architectural structure in downtown manhattan offered me the hand in an AI tango and i accepted the call, i am alert with curiosity waiting the results. i offered them my choir archives, written over 17 years that will float through the pinball of artificial intelligence by the grid of bird migrations, clouds, aeroplanes and that voluptuous thing called barometer ! hudson valley happens to be one of the most bird-trafficked deltas on the planet, i know this of my own experience .... hope you will enjoy this ! warmth björk”
Björk’s score uses AI tech from Microsoft to pull a selection of snippets of her favorite choral arrangements from her archive. The collaboration was born last spring when the artist, the Hamrahlid Choir, and its director Thorgerdur Ingólfsdóttir, stayed at Sister City for a month as they rehearsed and performed a month-long residency at the Shed in Manhattan.
The new score follows the AI-generated music Julianna Barwick composed for the hotel last year. In October 2019, the Museum of Modern Art in New York City used a score Arca wrote using the Bronze AI engine to soundtrack its lobby.
Check out Pitchfork’s “In Sight Out” podcast with Björk.
Originally Appeared on Pitchfork
