ZICHI

December 2018

Overview

ZICHI is an interactive musical AI. Being more than a playable instrument, it is also a musical intelligence who can "understand" the input from participants and compose accordingly a new melody and play it back to audiences with the tone of Guqin. Guqin is an eastern traditional musical instrument with long history and a beautiful legend: The music of Guqin musician Yu Boya can only be understood by his best friend Zichi. Their stories have been told generation after generation to honor the value of friendship and understanding. In this project, we propose an AI system which can response to human input and generate Guqin music and name it as ZICHI, aiming at rediscovering traditions and allow their essence to evolve through emerging technology while maintaining elements of both familiar and new. The deep cultural heritage meets rapidly changing forms of art powered by technological advancements, this project is dedicated to building a creative and collaborative AI profile, where AI captivates the imagination to enhance creativity. This project is also part of the artist's ongoing installation series - Chinese New Literati.

“子期”是一个交互式音乐人工智能。不仅仅是一把可供演奏的古琴，“子期”更是一个音乐AI，能“理解”参与者的演奏和输入并以之为“灵感”实时谱写新的旋律并以古琴的音色演绎出来。俞伯牙的高山流水，唯有遇到钟子期方才知音。古琴传承千载的不仅仅是它的音乐和东方传统，还有这一段关乎艺术关乎友谊关乎理解的知音佳话。在这个项目中，艺术家选择古琴这一东方意向创作AI并使之能够响应参与者的输入实时生成古琴曲，并以子期为其命名，目标在于发掘传统并以最新的技术重新其内核。古老的东方艺术经验和日新月异的人工智能科技相碰撞，这个项目既是对传统文化的全新诠释，也是对AI可能性的延伸。这个项目致力寻找和建立一个积极的与人类协作并具备创造能力的AI形象，并极力拓展我们关于人工智能赋能创造力的想象。这件作品同时也是其系列装置计划“中国新文人”的一部分，作为艺术家连续实践的议题--人工智能赋能创造力、人工智能再现传统文化精神--的持续探索。

* 该件作品是艺术家于上海浦东新场古镇驻留项目创作，由上海浦东文化传媒集团（PMG）支持并永久收藏。