This event is in two parts
Part 1
When: 13:30-14:30 20/10/2023
Where: ECA West Court, 74 Lauriston Place, Edinburgh
What: An introduction to the instrument, the sounds it makes an invitation for visitors to explore and interact with it.
UNESCO Week of Sound events are free, book a ticket.
Part 2
When: 15:00-16:00 20/10/2023
Where: ECA West Court, 74 Lauriston Place, Edinburgh
What: A concert featuring Maria Sappho, The Ostoyae, and Una MacGlone (double bass).
UNESCO Week of Sound events are free, book a ticket.
Maria Sappho writes:
The explosive advancement in AI has created a host of important ethical questions considering the protection of human rights and intellectual property, global challenges of unbalanced access, and concerning bias and socio-political issues in need of attention. Nevertheless, these machines will continue to populate almost all sectors of our lives, and the techno-moral considerations that they bring with them provide valuable opportunities to seize this moment of socio-cultural change.
As an artist, I wonder what kinds of paths we will take as we build these new human-machine futures. That is, as our communities diversify through new technological possibilities – will we be capable of applying techno-social lessons towards understanding our capacity to live and collaborate effectively? The Ostoyae is a new musical instrument developed with and for multi-species listening, working towards communication between myself, my AI named Chimere, and mushrooms.
My work proposes we might experiment with making music within a new trifecta that joins the human, machine and organic world as a new creative ecosystem.The Ostoyae is named after one of the biggest and most ancient living beings on our planet, the Armillaria Ostoyae, a master at collective community flourishing. The Ostoyae instrument has been built so that you can try out this new future of diverse multi-species co-creation, future building, and creative thinking. You need not need consider yourself a musician, or musical in any way to play it. You, like every other agent within this multi-species musical ecosystem, are part of a project for experimentation and exploration. One which comes with no pre-determined techniques, aesthetics or values, but rather simply a speculative question: how would you like to contribute in a diverse multi-species community?”
Maria Sappho www.mariasappho.com/
