InsideOut | ARTMIX

Inside Out by ArtMix is a research project based on the exploration of a musician’s emotions while performing a musical composition. This is a performance in which the individuality of the musicians becomes an equal part of the piece, creating a unique audio-visual composition. It is an attempt to open the listener’s consciousness to other connections than the ones that normally arise. Inside Out develops a sensory system for understanding classical music, offering a way to visually interpret emotions within a musical performance, based on the introduction of modern technologies. How does a musical performance change, revealing new ways of interacting with the audience? Can the listener understand music not only through his individual perception system, but also read the perception of music by the performer himself?

InsideOut performance

Our team explores contemporary media technologies in music performance. The musiciansare fitted with special sensory neurosensors as they perform. Information about the electrical activity of the musicians’ brains is visualised into a dynamic digital canvas generated by neural networks. We use the StyleGan2 generative-adversarial network model to create a visual image by correlating musical compositions with artworks of the same years. During a
performance we can watch live how the emotional background of the musicians changes as they play their instruments.

The emotions of each musician influence the visuals, creating an overall visual composition. The musical combinations create visual coherence.

The music programme is based on the XXth century including pieces by Kluzner, Ysaÿe, Pärt, Desyatnikov, Sollima, Bartok and Yevlakhov. Every work that we have in the program has internal emotional contrasts. Such contrasts during performance are always difficult to perform, due to the fact that you need quickly to switch to another state.

The piece played is unique each time, revealing the individuality and community of both musicians and listeners.