Amsterdam – Design agency Modem Works has created a digital extension for the Teenage Engineering OP–Z media synthesizer inspired by the perceptual phenomenon of synaesthesia.
Synaesthesia is a neurological condition in which information meant to stimulate one of the senses stimulates several. Listening to music, for instance, can involuntarily evoke an experience of colour, shape and movement. Modem’s extension to the synthesizer translates music into real-time AI-generated imagery.
The studio collaborated with creative developer Bureau Cool to connect the media synthesizer to Stable Diffusion, an advanced AI system capable of creating original, realistic images and art from a description in natural language. Stable diffusion generates associative imagery based on different audio metrics – such as pitch, key, notes, rhythm and beats per minute – which have been translated into text prompts describing colour, shapes and movements.
Modem and Bureau Cool have billed the project as a ‘joint performance between human and machine’, and see its potential for musicians as exploring new forms of creativity. Watch out for LS:N Global’s upcoming reporting on AI’s influence on creativity.
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