WHERE: MONOM Studio, Funkhaus Berlin
WHEN: January 23rd – 26th
WHAT: Skill-sharing Sessions & Open Lab
WHO: William Russell, Maurice Jones, Alexandre Saunier, Portrait XO, Beth Coleman
Free Entry
Set within the 4DSOUND environment of MONOM, Berlin’s centre for spatial sound, the Wilding AI Lab is designed as a public experiment for sound artists and musicians to learn about and experiment with some of the latest AI systems bridging large-language models and generative AI sound, all within the spatialised audio environment. The lab follows the artist and researcher Beth Coleman’s appeal for imagining an AI »that can be free—if not to imagine, then to generate—speeding through possibilities, junctures that are idiotic until they are not.«
Over four days the lab features a series of morning skill-sharing workshops for lab participants and interested members of the public, plus afternoons of hands-on experimentation closed to lab participants only. The sessions and lab will be hosted by artists and researchers including Portrait XO, Beth Coleman, Alexandre Saunier, and Maurice Jones, who among others have been active as the artistic core to the ongoing research-creation project »Wilding AI.«
Launched in August 2024 at the MUTEK festival in Montreal, »Wilding AI« presents an open space to reopen the black boxes of generative AI. It gathers folks to encounter each other and the manifold artistic and technological experiments, interventions and provocations, which not only imagine but materially manifest wild AI futures. The initiative has continued experimenting at MUTEK.MX in October 2024 before landing at MONOM in Berlin just ahead of CTM Festival.
Program:
January 23rd
Day 1 (Word) centres around questions of storytelling and world-building in times of generative AI. Beth Coleman will introduce Wilding AI as a critical approach to artistic research-creation in the age of algorithmic culture. Following, Maurice Jones will lead a skill-sharing session exploring the critical application of large-language models in and through artistic practice.
11:00–13:00: Public Skill-Sharing Session: Introduction to Wilding AI (Beth Coleman), followed by an introduction to the critical application of large-language models in and through artistic practice (Maurice Jones)
January 24th
Day 2 (Sound) is focused on the latest developments in generative sound. Led by independent artist and researcher Portrait XO the morning session will provide a crash course ranging from the latest AI tools to practices of data sonification.
11:00–13:00: Public Skill-Sharing Session: Introduction to generative sound (Portrait XO)
January 25th:
Day 3 (Space) is focused on translating word and sound into the spatial audio environment. Led by Alexandre Saunier, the morning skill-sharing session will share the latest AI-driven tools for sound spatialization developed by the Wilding AI collective.
11:00–13:00: Public Skill-Sharing Session: Introduction to 4DSOUND (William Russell) and AI-driven tools for spatialization (Alexandre Saunier)
January 26th
Day 4 (Open Lab)
13:00–17:00: will invite audiences and publics for a series of prototype presentations, artistic interventions, talks and presentations sharing both process and outcomes of the lab and its participants.
About the hosts:
Alexandre Saunier (FR)
Alexandre Saunier (he/him) is a French multidisciplinary artist and researcher working with light, video, sound, and autonomous computing systems. His performances and installations explore the intersection between sensory perception, media arts, theatrical dramaturgy, cybernetics, and complex system theory. Alexandre’s artistic work and academic research are regularly presented in international venues such as MUTEK, Elektra BIAN, Festival Internacional de la Imagen, Ars Electronica, ISEA, Impakt Festival, MuffatHalle, Bcn_llum, ALIFE Conference, Media Art History, or Toronto’s Nuit Blanche.
Beth Coleman (US/CA)
Dr. Beth Coleman is an artist and research scientist working across locations of text, sound, and visuality, playing with frequencies of a generative aesthetic. Coleman has a history of international exhibition at venues such as the Whitney Museum of American Art, New Museum of Contemporary Art, Pioneer Works, Centre International des Récollets Paris, Waag Society Amsterdam, among others.
Maurice Jones (he/him)
Maurice Jones (he/him) is a curator, producer, and critical AI researcher based in Tiohtià:ke/Montréal, Canada, where he is currently a PhD candidate at Concordia University with Dr. Fenwick McKelvey, investigating cross-cultural perceptions of AI, public participation in technology governance, and festivals as temporary utopias. In 2021, Maurice joined MUTEK’s Montréal headquarters in developing the program of the professional MUTEK Forum and leading the transnational Future Festivals research project. He was the Artistic Director of MUTEK.JP festival in Tokyo from 2016 to 2022.
Portrait XO (she/they)
Portrait XO (she/they) is an independent researcher and transdisciplinary artist. The core of her works addresses bias in society, translates speculative opinions about AI, and critiques the impact of AI on creativity, identity, underrepresented cultures and society. She has performed, presented, and exhibited at The UN AI for Good Summit, SXSW, Ars Electronica, MONOM, Reeperbahn Festival, International Music Summit, Amsterdam Dance Event, BBA Gallery, RE:PUBLICA, Sonar+D, Factory Berlin, Tech Open Air, Redbull Music, Future Forum by BMW Welt, KIKK Festival, Github, and more.
About the Partners:
About MONOM
MONOM is a collective of artists, technologists, studios, and venues exploring spatial sound as an artistic and experiential medium. From sound art and music to theatre, opera, dance, and the immersive realms of virtual and augmented realities, their mission is to provide space and time for anyone who wants to expand the dimensions of their creative practice and to enrich communal and individual experiences of sound and art.
About CTM – Festival for Adventurous Music & Art
CTM connects multi-perspective experiences, critical reflection, hedonism, and collaborative learning via a yearly festival and continuous collaborative projects, publications, commissions, concerts, club nights, and more. The festival's 26th edition will take place 24 January – 2 February 2025, presenting a myriad of experimental, personal, and emotional artistic practices that mirror a world in distress and uncertainty. Spatial sound is one of the ongoing threads within the festival programme, explored through commissioned works, labs, and collaborations. Concerts, club nights, workshops, artistic labs, and talks run across Berlin venues silent green, radialsystem, Volksbühne, MONOM, Berghain, Oxi, RSO.Berlin, Morphine Raum, and more.
Presented in collaboration with »Wilding AI,« a research-creation collective led by Beth Coleman, Romi Morrison and Maurice Jones, the »Wilding AI Lab« at CTM 2025 is supported by MONOM Studios, and CTM Festival.
The ongoing »Wilding AI« initiative is supported by MUTEK, MUTEK Mexico, MONOM Studios, 4DSOUND, Neutone Inc., Concordia University, and the Society for Arts and Technology.
Wilding AI is made possible by round 14 of the Goethe-Institut International Coproduction Fund.