Has your computer been introduced to sound?
"When I realized the potential of a musical BCI [Brain-Computer Interface] for the wellbeing of severely disabled people…I couldn’t leave the idea alone. Now I can’t separate this work from my activities as a composer."
Composer and computer-music specialist Eduardo Miranda of the University of Plymouth, UK, who has been working on a brain-computer interface that allows paralyzed people to compose music with their minds.
In 1961, an IBM 7094 became the first computer to “sing,” performing a rendition of Harry Dacre’s “Daisy Bell.” The vocals were programmed by John Kelly and Carol Lockbaum and the accompaniment was programmed by Max Mathews at Bell Labs. Despite the inherent ridiculousness of hearing a computer the size of a room musing about double-seater bicycles, the end result is eerie and sweet — not to mention a watershed moment in human-computer relations.
Of course, the performance was the inspiration for HAL’s ending monologue in 2001: A Space Odyssey.
“Operabots” rehearsing for Tod Machover’s Death and the Powers
"ROBOT LEADER
Units assembled for the ritual
Performance at command,
As the Human Creators have ordained,
In memory of the Past.
ROBOT TWO
This concept I cannot understand,
At the center of the drama—
What is this
“Death”—Is it a form of waste?
ROBOT THREE
I cannot comprehend, I cannot understand:
If the information of one unit might be lost
It is backed up by any other unit at hand:
What is this
“Death”—Is it an excessive cost?
"
ROBOT LEADER
Units assembled for the ritual
Performance at command,
As the Human Creators have ordained,
In memory of the Past.
ROBOT TWO
This concept I cannot understand,
At the center of the drama—
What is this
“Death”—Is it a form of waste?
ROBOT THREE
I cannot comprehend, I cannot understand:
If the information of one unit might be lost
It is backed up by any other unit at hand:
What is this
“Death”—Is it an excessive cost?
Opening phrases of Tod Machover’s new Singularity opera, Death and the Powers. Libretto by Robert Pinsky. Death and the Powers was developed in collaboration with the MIT Media Lab, who developed new “Disembodied Performance” techniques to express the complexity of a character who uploads himself to a computer half-way through the opera; other inventions include a musical chandelier and a chorus of robots.
