What is it about?

Ars Electronica live-streamed GROUPTHNK from National Gallery X. The show featured a sitarist, a guitarist and immersive video generated by AI video trained on National Gallery's collection. We aimed to understand how we might experience an 'Internet of Neurons' where humans and AI shared sensations in a creative environment. Our method was to create sensations of 'live-ness' - the visceral connection between musicians and audience in space. Webcams on viewer PCs detected the audience's excitement levels by measuring the volume of blood in their forehead. Musicians responded to changing moods via a visual score in the video. A post-event survey revealed high levels of satisfaction, including a strong feeling of connection, between audience and the musicians.

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Why is it important?

GROUPTHINK achieved several goals. Performers and audiences felt more connected to each other, and the performance felt live because of the mutual influence. The performance was commissioned by the National Gallery, which is the UK's flagship collection of paintings - the Old Masters - from the Middle Ages until 1917. The other commissioner was the UKRI Trustworthy Autonomous Systems Hub, which studies how AI can integrate into society. Mixing the two commissions created a potent brew. We breathed new life into old art. Everyone enjoyed themselves. And we gathered valuable data on how to form spontaneous emotional connections over the Internet. Many people love live concerts, but not everyone can go to a venue. Our research leads the way to giving everyone the excitement, satisfaction and emotional afterglow of attending a show in person.

Perspectives

I'm a visual artist who is passionate about music. I'm also developing models of arts-driven research, that is, using artistic techniques to generate scientific data. Art can ask questions which science cannot, and it can also generate holistic environments which where multiple variables can be handled with rigor. Contemporary engineering fails on so many levels. Most of humanity dwells in an engineered environment which is inhumane for many people and ecologically unsustainable for every living creature. In my view, art, science and engineering should work together to create humane, sustainable environments. The Italian Renaissance is my inspiration. As are my collaborators in GROUPTHINK. Each of us has artistic, scientific and technical skills. GROUPTHINK addressed a specific use case, but it also serves as proof of concept. Multidisciplinary training works, and multidisciplinary research produces solid data. Finally, we had a lot of fun. Isn't that what every person deserves?

Dr Ali Hossaini
King's College London

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This page is a summary of: GROUPTHINK, Proceedings of the ACM on Computer Graphics and Interactive Techniques, September 2022, ACM (Association for Computing Machinery),
DOI: 10.1145/3533610.
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