Creative collaborations can take many forms. In this fun and fascinating talk, Composer Alexis Weaver and creative director Kartini Ludwig share their journey to make music with the support of a third partner: artificial intelligence. ALEXIS WEAVER (she/her) is a composer, sound artist and educator based in Sydney, Australia. A passionate composer of electroacoustic music, Alexis has also composed soundtracks for animation, short film, theatre, dance, and podcasts. Alexis’ electroacoustic works have been broadcast in Australia, the US, the UK, and Europe, as well as featured on New Weird Australia’s Collapse Theories (2022), Solitary Wave (2019) and RMN Classical’s Electroacoustic and Beyond II (2017) compilation albums. Recent highlights include her residency in Venice for La Biennale di Venezia throughout 2023, where Alexis composed an immersive electroacoustic work featuring poetry by Dr Geosmin Turpin. She also collaborated with Kopi Su Studio to premiere a new, AI-generated work for the Sonic Mutations livestream at the Sydney Opera House, which was revisited for the 2023 Sydney SxSW Festival. Alexis is an Associate Lecturer in Music Technology at the Sydney Conservatorium of Music. She is also a PhD candidate with the University of Sydney’s School of Chemistry, studying the role of music and sound design in science communication.
Kartini is the Director and Founder of Kopi Su, a digital design and innovation studio, and Koup Music, a startup focused on building a platform to help audio artists create, control and customise their own AI music. Kartini is also, the driving force behind Sonic Mutations, an AI and music performance series originally commissioned by the Sydney Opera House for the Outlines Festival in July 2023. With over eight years’ experience as a seasoned Producer and Digital Strategist, Kartini has an impressive track record of delivering projects at the intersection of arts, culture and technology. Her other past contributions include working on projects for organisations such as Google’s Creative Lab, Creative Australia and the Biennale of Sydney. This talk was given at a TEDx event using the TED conference format but independently organized by a local community. Learn more at https://www.ted.com/tedx