>>>ENTER SLEEPSTATES.NET >>>

SLEEPSTATES.NET is a browser-based work where the user navigates to different states of algorithmic slumber, a sleep-cycle of audiovisual interactions that takeover their screen. Exploring themes of machine addiction and autonomy, sleep sanctity, the networked condition and how citizens are subjected to emotion extraction via platform capitalism, these dream transmissions journey through the techno-emotional states of slumber we experience between humans and machines late at night. This piece accompanies SLEEPSTATES, the debut album from SONAMB.

Users experience AV screen-takeovers, interactive pop-up provocations and monitor their slumber status and machine addiction levels. They are asked to join SONAMB in defending sleep by ‘transmitting their frequency’ and breathing into the machine via an audio reactive noise-field, contributing to a collective citizen-white-noise-sleep-aid.

SLEEPSTATES.NET began in lockdown through late night internet explorations learning web coding and visual machine learning whilst experiencing sleep deprivation and questioning my mental health in relation to the machine. Documenting techno-emotional states of anxiety, addiction and inertia through audiovisual vignettes and code sketches, I sought to create a free space to commune collectively with the machine, an alternative to interfaces of power, data extraction and capitalism.
The piece takes inspiration from 24/7, Jonathan Crary (sleep=the last defence against capitalism) and MIT’s Dream Lab( sleep sound implantation). As a child of the 80s/90s, I grew up surrounded by computers as my Dad was a programmer. I was too young to take part in early utopian net communities but I do remember the aesthetic like a dream. 

SUPPORT:The piece received R&D support via a remote residency for Manchester International Festival during lockdown, followed by creative web design mentoring with Studio Treble supported by Arts Council England. 

PUBLIC SHOWINGS: The original SLEEPSTATES music video appeared at MUTEK Distant Arcades exhibition and online for Amplify festival at Somerset House. The artwork was shown at the 2023 NFT Biennale as part of the Sound Obsessed New City archive.

The AURA MACHINE research website is now live. The platform collates the research and creative outputs from my artist residency over the past two years with NOVARS, centre for innovation in sound at the University of Manchester, where I have been exploring the collision of musique concrete and machine learning. The residency was supported by European Arts Science Technology Network for Digital Creativity and in collaboration with PRiSM Lab (Practice Research in Science and Music) at the Royal Northern College of Music and was kindly supported by Arts Council England.

Framed by my research question “how can concrete materials and neural networks project future sonic realities?” , the site sets out the critical rationale for exploration, could machine learning, specifically sample based neural synthesis, be a tool for contemporary musique concrete?

Throughout the research I developed skills in building sonic concrete datasets, technical knowledge of neural synthesis and methodologies for listening, composition and performance when working with these materials. The musical output was in the form of my piece AURA MACHINE, whose first iteration was a 10 minute AV piece showcased at FutureMusic#3 event at RNCM.

The piece took the listener on a journey through training a neural network, starting with the raw concrete materials (representing the sonic dataset), through to transmutation (model training) to the purely generated AI materials. Conceptually the piece played with both Pierre Schaffer’s idea on the sound objects and Walter Benjamin’s ‘The work of art in the age of mechanical reproduction’ with the idea of a piece of art being authentic to a time and place’. This AV piece was further developed as a live piece into a 20 minute live performance with sound sculpture, audio reactive visuals (collab with Sean Clarke) and performances at Manchester Science Museum and a lead feature for PatchNotes, Factmag.

The residency was also supported by Arts Council England, this meant I could also develop new systems for algorithmic sound sculpture and circuit designs combining the creation of an ancient alchemical dataset (I found many parallels between alchemy and modern day ML) for visual generation and contemporary prototyping tools including 3d geometric design with Blender and 3D printed models before professional fabrication.

One aim of the residency was to demystify machine learning, break out of the hidden black box and through examining both the inherent barriers and the current accessible tools, share insights and approaches for other artists to create with sonic AI. I created ‘DREAMING WITH MACHINES’ an educational project for young women with Brighter Sound to support others in using these tools and techniques. We looked at the technical history of AI, inherent bias in datasets, the positive aspects of the turn of creative AI and its potential to imagine future societies and realities. We discussed our relationship with machines and the participants created their own datasets and audio visual pieces which premiered online as ‘dream transmissions’ and were showcased at the Unsupervised#3 event at University of Manchester.

>>dream transmissions from the electrical imaginary>>

SLEEPSTATES is the debut release by SONAMB, the new music project from Manchester sound artist Vicky Clarke, released November 2022. Exploring machine addiction, broken radio transmissions and algorithmic sleep territories, the record takes the listener through a cycle of dream transmissions from the electrical imaginary; the techno – emotional states of slumber we experience between humans and machines late at night.  

‘a glitchy experimental techno jerker’

Boomkat review

Created over the past three years via networked locations, sonic states combine transmission recordings between Manchester, Berlin and St Petersburg and lockdown internet noise experiments, bringing together her processes of sound creation with DIY electronics, sound sculpture, musique concrete and machine learning. The record explores the sonic materiality of our technologies, the sanctity of sleep and ideas of autonomy and control as we meld into our machines, blurring conscious boundaries of our waking and networked selves.

Reception: The album was described as a ‘glitchy experimental techno jerker’ by Boomkat and ‘a stunning collection‘ receiving a full page feature in Electronic Sound magazine >>Read both reviews here >> Sleepstates was featured on Afrodeutsche’s The People’s Party show on BBC 6 Music, as SONAMB took on the unmixable challenge and played album track Sync Whole.>>Listen to feature>>. Album tracks also received airplay on NTS, Resonance FM, Camp Radio and Repeater radio.

SLEEPSTATES.NET: The release is accompanied by SLEEPSTATES.NET, a net-art piece featuring music from the record. 

Credits: All tracks are written, produced and mixed by SONAMB, except track 7, mixed by Francine Perry and tracks 2 & 9, co-mixed by SONAMB and Francine Perry. SLEEPSTATES is mastered by Katie Tavini, Weird Jungle.

Listen: The album is self-released on Control Data Records, and is available on tape cassette and digital download direct from Bandcamp and Boomkat.

For the East St Arts / Convention House residency I am undertaking research for my project ‘Circular Sferics’. This will explore the duality of our technologies being both of the earth and used as detection devices for measuring, through creating a circular technological approach using sound and sculptural process. I’m using DIY environmental sensing technologies to record sounds of the natural environment using self built radio antennae, and my AURA MACHINE VLF and EMF detector circuits. 

The recordings will focus on sferics (atmospherics), the natural electrical phenomena detected by radio antennae, which will be analysed as data to develop a methodology of visualising these as 3D geometries. Working at Convention House I will learn new skills in 3D ceramic printing and 3D scanning to create new sculptural objects  – made out of clay – completing the circle as new material forms. 

I am looking forward to working with clay, the original technological material and representing unseen sferic phenomena as physical matter. The cyclical format of the residency explores themes around the circular economy, deep time and technological e-waste through sonic materiality. I will also be running an electronics workshop, developing my knowledge around environmental sculpture through mentoring and I look forward to getting involved and contributing to the Convention House community.

BACKGROUND

The work is inspired by my research and reading into natural radio and environmental sculpture. In lockdown I undertook the Radio x Rectangle course, learning to build short wave radios, crystal oscillators and antennae, in tandem I got interested in listening to natural electricity through reading Earth Sound Earth Signal by Douglas Kahn, A Geology of Media by Jussi Parikka and was inspired by the great Alvin Lucier’s experiments in the 80s recording sferics.

PHASE ONE: FABRICATION | ELECTRONICS | RECORDINGS

For the first stage I have been collaborating with the wonderful Daniel Simpkins (and fellow Rogue Studios artist) at KUNSTRUCT, who worked with me to fabricate and realise my designs. We began with the material, opting for a dark grey Valcrohmat with yellow flecks, an ethically sourced wooden composite that when varnished takes on a look of stone. Dan meticulously hand crafted each block for the sculpture, the forms of which were algorithmically generated (this sculpture is AURA#3 Wood, the third in the series of my aura machine sculptures developed via my methodology of neurally generating sculptural works) and then further designed by myself. The sculpture needed to be functional also with in-built speaker chamber, a detachable loop antenna and as an outdoor piece it needed to be mobile for recording in fields.

The electronics and interface for the piece encompass a VLF (very low frequency) circuit, a patchable mixer where you can opt to plug in the EMF detector and stereo amplification through a bass speaker and two mids. There is a detachable loop antenna and for grounding a large earth spike, I worked with long term collaborator Creative Technologist Chris Ball who helped me with circuit amplification and testing at Yorkshire Sculpture Park for our first recordings, which attracted a fair few cows! You can listen to these first test recordings below.

Thanks to Yorkshire Sculpture Park and Invisible Flock for hosting me for these first recordings, and to Shazia and Matt at East St Arts for their ongoing support.

In phase two I will be translating these sounds into 3D geometries for new sculptural ideas and working with the clay 3D printer in the Convention House maker space.

This work has been supported by East Street Arts and explored at Convention House in Leeds.