Kelsey Cotton

 
👩‍🎤💭👩‍💻🔎♀️




Mark




2024

December 4, 18:00

HEALTH CLUB: Sound Bath

🔗https://fb.me/e/50dfcOVfm

I’m thrilled to be a part of HEALTH CLUB at Gathenhielmskahuset to bring sound baths to GBG with my dear colleague and friend Patricia Vane.

Immerse yourself in a sound bath, where the voice becomes a channel for deep listening. In Sound Bath, artist Patricia Vane and researcher/singer Kelsey Cotton invite the public to explore the resonant, emotional landscape of the voice as it washes over the visitor, inviting stillness, introspection and connection.

Free, and please mail patricia.vane@skogen.pm to register.

Fördjupa dig i ett ljudbad, där rösten blir en kanal för djupt lyssnande. I Sound Bath bjuder konstnären Patricia Vane och forskaren/sångaren Kelsey Cotton in allmänheten att utforska röstens resonanta, känslomässiga landskap när den sköljer över besökaren och inbjuder till stillhet, introspektion och kontakt.

Det är en upplevelse där du inte uteslutande lyssnar på ljud, utan till närvaron och känslan av rösten i all dess subtilitet och komplexitet. När vibrationerna rör sig genom och runt dig skapar de ett gemensamt utrymme där ljud och tystnad möts, där rösten blir ett sätt att stämma in på oss själva och världen omkring oss. Låt rösten vägleda dig till en plats av lugn, klarhet och förnyelse. Eller en annan dimension.

Ljudbadet pågår i 2 timmar med en kort paus mitt i. Sound Bath är en kollektiv upplevelse där en grupp två grupper i taget turas om att ljuda och bli översköljda av ljud.
Kom som du är. Ingen förkunskap krävs (man behöver absolut inte bli ‘bra på att sjunga’. Ljudet är ofta sakta och subtilt och görs i en avslappnad atmosfär, enkelt och intuitivt. Det är inte möjligt att göra något fel.

Anmäl dig gärna: det finns en gräns på 30 pers, fri entré
Bokning: patricia.vane@skogen.pm
Ingen förkunskap krävs
18:00 – 20:00


Health Club sker med stöd av Kulturrådet och Göteborg stad, samt i samarbete med Sensus med stöd av Västra Götalandsregionen.Health Club sker med stöd av Kulturrådet och Göteborg stad, samt i samarbete med Sensus med stöd av Västra Götalandsregionen.

Licenitate Thesis Defense- November 26, 13:30 -15:30

I will have my Licentiate Seminar (a halfway degree for a PhD), in which I present my research work into voice and AI applications in musical contexts. 

I will present my work in conversation with  Professor Alexander Refsum Jensenius, of the University of Oslo (UiO). 

The Licentiate will take place in EDIT-rummet 3364 (🗺️ map here) and will be accessible via Zoom (📺 link here)


Title: Musical AI Voices: Facts, Concerns and
Experimental Musical Practices with AI
Voice Tools

Abstract:

As early adopters of technologies, artists are uniquely positioned to probe and explore the potentials and problematics that these tools afford and pose to their artistic practice. This is especially applicable to AI voice tools, which present unique challenges to the “value” of human voice and voice data; to our understandings of human vocality in the age of deep learning innovation; and how we work with AI voices in an experimental musical practice. This thesis investigates the intersections of AI voice tools and experimental musical practices, examining how artists critically engage with–and are implicated by–AI voice tools that clone, parse and synthesise human voice and speech.

Within this topic, we address the technological facts and the societal implications and concerns of generative AI voice tools–encompassing deep learning voice models and speech toolkits–which offer unique artistic potentials to work with a feasibly unending palette of generated vocal sounds. The fidelity of these tools are continually advancing, and are increasingly being utilised within artistic practices.

Our motivations in this thesis are grounded in an exploration of AI voice tools’ potentials and problematics, which span a range of both pragmatic technology facts and societal concerns, and navigate interdisciplinary boundaries. The nature and pace of deep learning developments is such that we presently lack methods of visibilising and critiquing the potentials and problematics of AI voice tools used in musical contexts. Further, we are in a unfolding period of investigating the wider socio-technical implications that are constructed through these potentials and problematics within musical practice. This thesis therefore explores the following research questions: What methodologies assist in visibilising the multifaceted potentials and/or problematics of AI voice tools used in musical contexts?; What wider socio-technical implications occur through these potentials and problematics within musical practice? and; What shifts occur within an experimental musical practice when critically exploring AI voice and speech tools?

Seeking to answer these questions, this thesis develops methodologies for– and chronicles–interdisciplinary practical and theoretical engagements with AI voice and speech models. Further, it discusses and formulates practical methods for feminist and interventionist analysis, and the development of–and performance with–AI voice and speech tools in experimental musical settings. Questions on how to visibilise the potentials and problematics of AI voice tools in musical contexts are foregrounded, alongside explorations into the shifts that occur within experimental musical practices when engaging with such tools.

This thesis contributes with: 1) a novel analytical method for the critical analysis of artworks featuring musical AI voice tools; 2) the establishment of interdisciplinary perspectives as integral to understanding the use, cultures-of use and implications of voice and speech AI tools in musical applications; 3) a Research-through-Design account of developing and performing with a series of AI voice models in a live music performance; and 4) a research stance on experimental musical practices as enabling the formation of new understandings of human and AI-mediated human vocality.


September 8 +9

I will be presenting my paper Sounding out extra-normal AI voice: Non-normative musical engagements with normative AI voice and speech technologiesat the AI and Musical Creativity Conference in Oxford, UK. Plus! I’ll be demo-ing glemöhnic’. 

gentle pain@GBG Fringe

September 6 (19:00) + September 7 (15:00) @ Dramatiska 

Thrilled to share that I’m playing at the Gothenburg Fringe with my trio gentle pain, featuring  movement artist Kasia Paluch and visual artist Urška Medved. 
“We peek through the spaces and chasms, looking for lightness. Between parallel times, we twitch and shudder - gently, delicately, yet full of foreboding. Gentle Pain brings movement, sound and visual to bear - all three together without hierarchical order. Dancing upon a knifepoint, finding ease together in unease; composing a performative creation in time and space.”

Bookings➡️ https://www.gbgfringe.com/events/gentle-pain/

August 30

i’ll be live coding some AI beep boops @Koami Art Festival

Register now➡️ https://0en4tbk5jw7.typeform.com/to/j5auJW3y

May 30 - June 2

I will be presenting my paper ‘Singing for the Missing: Bringing the Body Back to AI Voice and Speech Technologies’  at Movement and Computing in Utrecht, the Netherlands. 

** it’s also my birthday during the conference, so it’ll be an extra special one! 


18 March @ 12:20pm EST

I will be giving a talk at UNATC „I. L. Caragiale” București ‘s AI in Art Practices and Research Conference.

My talk, titled Bringing Care-full Trouble to Musical AI will be about how artists can uncover (and work with) the residues and quirks that AI tools bring to their musical practices.

I’m excited to share some helpful tools with y’all! ✨


Check out the full schedule < here

*continual state of being**
I regularly upload live coding videos from my plei  project to my YouTube channel...
Feel free to have a squiz  

- WP of my track gorglemöhn, live on Season #7 of h a l f f l o o r’s amazing sound art roster.

ft. some of my gurgles, and the debut of my AI voice gurgle doppelgänger. I had so much fun coding it in strudel! You can listen to it at this link soon

( 🔗 click here to hear some previous seasons of h a l f f l o o r 🔗)

*continual state of being**
I’m running a study group “Vocal Ontology” with Patricia Vane at Skogen (click to check the schedule here), Gothenburg, SE.

2023

November 5 - World premiere of “EARTH” by Lina Järnegard. With Viva Vocal Ensemble at Cinnober, Gothenburg, SE. https://www.facebook.com/events/1474629323332993/

November 5 - World premiere of “AIR” by Casey Moir. With Viva Vocal Ensemble at Cinnober, Gothenburg, SE. https://

www.facebook.com/events/1474629323332993/

August 29- September 02 - Presenting my paper “Caring Trouble and Musical AI” at AIMC in Brighton, UK  

May - Gentle Pain. With Kasia Paluch and Urška Medved. Presented by ExPro Stage. HDK Valand, Gothenburg, SE. https://www.facebook.com/events/787461156075202

April 29 -  Gentle Pain (world premiere). With Kasia Paluch and Urška Medved as part of HUMANOGRAPHY for INTERNATIONELLA DANSENS DAG. Gothenburg, SE. https://www.facebook.com/events/6505169812829507/?ref=newsfeed   

2022

January and February - Launch of Intersomatic "SymbioSing" project. Music by Morton Feldman. KTH, Stockholm, SE. 

2021

December 3 - Performing in 'Transforming Space: the evocative power of the voice'by Casey Moir as part of the Viva Vocal Ensemble. Gothenburg, SE. https://www.facebook.com/events/885067565483440/?ref=newsfeed

September 22 and 24 - Performing in 'Music Mundana' by Mareike Nele Dobewall. Stockholm, SE. https://www.facebook.com/events/4534170296633819/

July - Performing as part of There is no air in Space at j3fm. Hannover, DE.

June 3 - World premiere of "Gertrude - What Happened" by Casey Moir. Text by Gertrude Stein. Gothenburg, SE.

February 18 - my poem “gerald cooks in half the time!” published by Dwell Time Press.
Read it < here >

2020

September 25 - 27 - World premiere of "Die Fragwürdigen". Text by Judith Keller. Dir: Lisa Pottstock. Hebebrand Str. 1. Hamburg, DE. https://www.facebook.com/events/327515648512463

July 18 - Impro Lab Live Sessions. Fritzen - Wohlwillstrasse 20. Hamburg, DE. https://www.facebook.com/events/626830674626638

July/August - World premiere of "The Body Electric" by Kelsey Cotton at Hochschule für Musik und Theater Hamburg. https://youtu.be/L5DbL4XyBsU 

July/August - World premiere of "Raport o stanie planety" by Rysard Alzin. Kelsey will originate the role of Ania. Online distribution. More information coming soon.

April 1 to 30 -  #30daysofFluxus Project as part of There is no air in Space. Online. https://www.facebook.com/thereisnoairinspace

January 20 - Performing Philippe Leroux's "Un lieu verdoyant" as part of There is no air in Space at the Goethe Institut. Lyon, FRA. http://www.cnsmd-lyon.fr/agenda/departement-de-musique-de-chambre-67

January 24 - World premiere of "Angels look like..." by Helena Skljarov for Empreintes #2 at CNSMDL. Lyon, FRA. http://www.cnsmd-lyon.fr/agenda/empreintes-2 

January 26 - World premiere of "The Body Electric" by Kelsey Cotton at CNSMDL. Lyon, FRA. http://www.cnsmd-lyon.fr/agenda/promotion-copeco-4

January 28 - Performing "Manala Manaia" by Sander Saarmets and Kelsey Cotton; and "FMO_1" by Jana De Troyer at CNSMDL. Lyon, FRA. http://www.cnsmd-lyon.fr/agenda/promotion-copeco-3 

February 17 and 18 - Performing in "Mobile" and "40° en Varèse"at the CNSMDL. Lyon, FRA. Link coming soon.

2019

November 21 - Performing at Sounds of Stockholm in the world premiere of Casey Moir's piece "Outside In". Stockholm, SWE. Link coming soon.

October 24 - Performing Demian Rudel Rey's "Del olvido siempre gris" for LABO SAS. Lyon, FRA.

October 11 - Performing as part of There is no air in Space in Erasmus Days at the Conservatoire National Supérieur de Danse et de la Musique. Lyon, FRA.  

September 21/22 - Performing Moya Henderson's opera "Stubble" at European Heritage Days at the Conservatoire National Supérieur de Danse et de la Musique. Lyon, FRA.  Link coming soon.

September 21/22 - Performing in "Unveiling" as part of There is no air in Space at European Heritage Days at the Conservatoire National Supérieur de Danse et de la Musique. World premieres of works by Jana De Troyer and Kelsey Cotton. Lyon, FRA.  Link coming soon.

May 27 - Performing in the world premiere of "Il Muro" by Davide Umbrello at the Estonian Academy of Music and Theatre with the EMTA Symphony Orchestra. Conductor: Toomas Vavilov. Tallinn, EST. Link: https://www.facebook.com/events/2216417518448432/

May 17- Performing in "Finissage" as part of the CoPeCo Collective at the Royal College of Music (KMH). Featuring world premieres of work by Tamara Laverman and the CoPeCo Collective. Stockholm, SWE. Link: https://www.facebook.com/events/471689013568551/

April 29 - Performing at "Le DBNP/Ipshita Rajesh // Casey Moir/Kelsey Cotton". Vocal improvisation with Casey Moir at Fylkingen. Stockholm, SWE. Link: https://www.facebook.com/events/322037835153048/

April 28 - Performing at Kulturnatt 2019 in "AudioVisible" as part of There is no air in Space. Featuring performances of works by Michael Sagulin, Alja Kosar and Thomas Kessler. Stockholm, SWE. Link: https://www.facebook.com/events/1102654416603232/

April 20 - Performing in "Inside the Box: CoPeCo / Emelie Markgren / Movers / V4R1". Stockholm, SWE. Link: https://www.facebook.com/events/409542889870230/

April 12 - Performing at ljudOljud in "for 2" as part of the CoPeCo Collective. Performance of Kate Soper's “Only the words themselves mean what they say”. Stockholm, SWE. Link: https://www.facebook.com/events/806594553041575/

April 5 - Appearing at the What Ever Works! Contemporary Music Festival as part of the CoPeCo Collective. Turku, Finland. Link: https://www.facebook.com/events/294058194598840/

April 4 - Appearing at the What Ever Works! Contemporary Music Festival as part of There is no air in Space. Local premiere of Ted Moore's if two things don't fit...". Turku, Finland. Link: https://www.facebook.com/events/636040886854790/  

April 2 - Performing in "cycle~". Performance of Witold Lutosławski's Five Songs After Poems by K. Iłłakowiczówna and the European premiere of Ted Moore's "if two things don't fit..." as part of There is no air in Space. Stockholm, SWE. Link: https://www.facebook.com/events/368597137078803/

March 19 - Performing in "fragments" as part of the CoPeCo Collective. Performance of Georges Aperghis' Recitations 8, 9 and 11. Stockholm, SWE. Link: https://www.facebook.com/events/2070139893039745/

February 28 - Performing in "Experimentell Musik 2" as part of the CoPeCo Collective. Featuring world premiere performances of Kelsey Cotton's "Macros I and II". Stockholm, SWE. Link: https://www.facebook.com/events/2290895424568682/  

February 5 - Performing in "Experimentell Music 1" as part of the CoPeCo Collective. Stockholm, SWE. Link: https://www.facebook.com/events/2214363585455160/ 

January 17 - Performing in "Inside The Box #4" as part of the CoPeCo Collective. Tallinn, EST. Link: https://www.facebook.com/events/2222852457989678/  

January 12 - Performing in "Crossings". Featuring works by Stravinsky, Bonanno, Rorem, and world premieres by Mélanie Vibrac and Bonnie Yung. Tallinn, EST. Link: https://www.facebook.com/events/1031206197087991/

2018

December 14 - Performing in "Inside the Box #3: Adjööö" as part of the CoPeCo Collective. Featuring works by Kessler,  Amu, , Sciarrino, Saariaho, Andriessen, Sandra Kuntu-Blankson and Ryszard Alzin. Tallinn, EST. Link: https://www.facebook.com/events/615267165556415/

December 4 - Performing in "Seemned" at ImProtest as part of the CoPeCo Collective. Tallinn, EST. Link: https://www.facebook.com/events/356532391575817/

November 9 - Performing in "Inside the Box #2: Extended". Tallinn, EST. Link: https://www.facebook.com/events/2039643449430873/

October 23 - Performing at SügisFest as part of the CoPeCo Collective. Tallinn, EST. Link: https://www.facebook.com/events/1383490218450297/

October 7 - Performing in "Inside the Box #1: Lingua Franca". Featuring works by Kagel,  Tenney, Stockhausen, Cardew and Mélanie Vibrac. Tallinn, EST. Link: https://www.facebook.com/events/547178895713532/

June 3 - Performing at "Beneath the Surface". Featuring works by Beach, Henderson Golijov and world premiere of Luke Severn's string quartet Beneath the Surface. Melbourne, AUS. Link: https://www.facebook.com/events/185326162193535/ 







Mark