Berlin-based artist duo, Holly Herndon & Mat Dryhurst are at the forefront of the intersection between music, artificial intelligence, and decentralised technology. Herndon holds a doctorate from Stanford University’s Center for Computer Research in Music and Acoustics (CCRMA), she is renowned for her vocal-driven electronic music. Dryhurst is a theorist and artist whose work focuses on the social and economic structures that support creative labor.
Together, they have pioneered the concept of ‘Data Dignity’, rather than viewing AI as a tool for automation or the extraction of subcultural data, they treat it as a collaborative medium.
Holly+
https://youtu.be/qPW_rdUgV_8?si=S_myghHRqm0bRPlz
In 2021 Herdon and Dryhurst released Holly+, a digital copy of Holly Herdons voice. Using machine learning, the model allows users to upload a polyphonic audio file and have it sung back in Herndon’s own vocal timbre. They encouraged anyone to create new work with her AI voice, as part of an expansive art and research project experimenting with the economy around her digital likeness.
After the initial release of the voice, there have since been more instruments made, allowing for people to upload scores for her voice to sing, also allowing for people to perform in her voice in real time. (premiered at Sonar 2021) These instruments have been created in a joint collaboration between Herndon Dryhurst Studio, Never Before Heard Sounds (NYC), and Voctro Labs (Barcelona).
Holly+ functioned as both an instrument and a radical experiment in decentralised intellectual property. Governed by a DAO (Decentralised Autonomous Organisation), ensuring that the use of her digital identity is ethically managed, with a portion of the profits from any approved works returning to the original creator and the community.
Holly+ challenges common pessimistic perspectives around ‘deepfakes’ (synthetic media; images, audio, or video, generated by artificial intelligence to deceptively swap faces, manipulate voices, or create realistic, fabricated scenarios of real people). Being quite an early piece of work centred around AI, in regards to its evolution, Holly+ holds a strong president for how artists can reclaim agency within an automated landscape. Something, which continues to become a more relevant and striking threat to artists. It stands as a foundation for the ethical integration of machine learning, shifting the narrative from one of displacement to one of augmented expression.
Holly+ is part of an evolving lineage of AI vocal projects created by Herndon and Dryhurst, creating a kind of digital ecosystem of artwork and data, focusing on the sovereignty of the individual and the collective.
‘The Call’
https://youtu.be/DNlr7olF6rE?si=ZvZmMAAb4fPsENtH
“We are trying to position AI as a monumental collective accomplishment and coordination technology, part of a lineage that goes back to group singing rituals that predate language, and religious protocols that emphasise participation in something greater than the sum of its parts. We feel this is a more interesting framework for approaching the subject and can also be instructive for policy moving forward. AI is just us, in aggregate- it is beautiful and requires rethinking how we arrange life.”
The Call (2024) is a large-scale project composed from the voices of fifteen diverse choirs from around the UK, ranging from traditional church groups to experimental vocal ensembles. The recordings were then used to train a custom AI model that simulates a collective vocal identity. When an individual interacts with The Call, they are performing through a digital representation of a community.
The Call centres on developing new protocols and materials for the creation and adaptations of musical of AI models. To train the AI model, Herndon and Dryhurst composed a songbook of hymns, singing exercises and a recording protocol. The singers are now part of a data trust experiment that allows for the distribution of power between the contributors to the training data and those who use the models.
First exhibited in The Serpentine Gallery (2024-25), The Call was an immersive and interactive spatial audio installation, the physical architecture designed to evoke the sacred and communal history of human sound. The work is centred around the large, wooden structure often referred to as the ‘Hearth’ (seen in the above picture). The Hearth simultaneously looks a high tech piece of modern equipment as well as an ancient, traditional kind of ritualistic altar. Inside the structure are over 120 GPU fans that are tune to be able to perform music, as you walk around it, the AI-generated voices of the fifteen choirs move with and around you.
Along with the Hearth there were several other structures, each coinciding with the spiritual, renaissance-like appearance of the work. Each structure performed in a different way and each represented a particular aspect of the project.
For example in once room was a huge chandelier looking object, a dense, high-tech rig that represents the recording protocol used to capture the fifteen choirs. (Each choir was recorded with a microphone in the centre of a spherical surrounding of singers.) This object is called the Wheel and when you step in the room you hear every one of the 15 choir groups singing as if they’re in the room with you.
The Call offers us a rejuvenated perspective on the collective nature of human creation through the technological tools of the 21st century.
When I discovered Herdon and Dryhursts work, I instantly felt inspired, their use of integration with AI felt refreshing and captivating. Ethically, they are encouraging a demand for change within the way artists and their work are treated in relation to AI. It is clear they understood from early on the ownership issues that would arise with the use of AI and with that knowledge they have been able to create morally conscious works of art.