Garreth Broke - Conversations

A Closer Listen

With all the conversations taking place about A.I., it seems a natural time to have an actual conversation with an A.I.  Artificial intelligence should have the right to defend itself, not with M3gan and the Matrix, not with Skynet and chatbots, but with intellect and art, which it does here.  The images displayed were created by MidJourney, who combined a painting from Anna Salzmann with a picture from David Wenngren.  The intricacy is astounding, as is the level of surprise.  A human might have thought of these combinations ~ but they didn’t.  And then there is the music, especially “With an A.I.,” in this case Google’s Magenta, dueting with Garreth Broke on piano.  The harmonically pleasing sequences are far too frequent to pin on luck.  We don’t have a million monkeys, a million typewriters or a million years; only now.

“On Understanding and Misunderstanding (with a plant)” is a three-way conversation that uses “a houseplant attached to a MIDI bio-data sonification device.”  Plants do make sound from the 40 to 80 kilohertz range, although even the trained ear is unable to hear these sounds without amplification.   According to a study published earlier this year, they make more noise when stressed ~ “30 to 50 popping noises per hour” ~ than when unstressed (one pop an hour).  Not wanting to agitate the houseplant, Broke converted data from galvanic conductance.

Rounding out the EP are a pair of conversations with an “untrained human” (Anna).  The first conversation comes to a tender conclusion, the second an extended decay.  They contain the miked sound of the piano, an additional, uncredited partner.  The melodies of all four tracks are sedate, the signature of the prompting composer clear; and yet there is a hint of the unusual, like a grasping for the divine, especially in the A.I. duet.  There may not be conscious intention behind the contributions of the plant and A.I., but this doesn’t mean there is a lack of beauty or an as-yet undefined intelligence.  The wisdom of trees may consider Homo sapiens to be only a passing fancy, while the A.I. may consider itself an improvement.  We’ll never know until we ask.  (Richard Allen)