Photograph by Sharjah Art Foundation

PLACE/DATE:
Sharjah Performing Arts Center in  Sharjah, UAE
Festival Inter-Resonance: Inter-Organics curated by Yoko Hasegawa, organized by Sharjah Art Foundation
2020/1/31 16:00 START

SUMMARY:
Keiichiro Shibuya’s Android opera “Scary Beauty” has been announced on January 31, 2020 at the Sharjah Academy for the performing arts, which is being held in Sharjah, the cultural capital of the United Arab Emirates.
This performance will be performed at the festival “Inter-Resonance: Inter-Organics Japanese Performance and Sound Art” hosted by the Sharjah Art Foundation, a contemporary art and cultural foundation based in Sharjah, UAE. Curated by Tokyo Metropolitan University of the Arts and Tokyo University of the Arts Graduate School professor Yuko Hasegawa, this festival will also include Min Tanaka, Miki Moriyama, Yuko Mohri, Hidenori Hayashi and Tomoko Sauvage. The collaboration of AI-powered Human Android Alter 3 (Supported by mixi, Inc.) conducting and singing the local orchestra NSO Symphony Orchestra (UAE) is a hot topic.

The Sharjah Art Foundation is a contemporary art and cultural foundation based in Sharjah, the United Arab Emirates, founded in 2009 by Hoor Al Qasimi, daughter of Sultan bin Muhammad Al-Qasimi, a member of the Supreme Council of the United Arab Emirates and current ruler of Sharjah, to support artists and artistic practice in the Sharjah communities, the UAE, and the region via different platforms.

Android opera “Scary Beauty” is the world’s first android opera work in which Android Alter 3 equipped with artificial intelligence (AI) conducts and orchestras a human orchestra. Keiichiro Shibuya is in charge of the concept, composition and piano, and Hiroshi Ishiguro (Professor, Osaka University) and Takashi Ikegami (Professor, University of Tokyo) participate as Android development members. For lighting, Takayuki Fujimoto, known for his Dumb type, Android system thorough specialists from various fields, such as Kotobuki Hikari, participate in the stage.

Starting from this project, Kunitachi College of Music and the University of Tokyo will conduct collaborative research for android and orchestra. The collaboration will be conducted by Yasuaki Itakura (Kunitachi College of Music) , electronic musician Shintaro Imai (Kunitachi College of Music), Takashi Ikegami and Keiichiro Shibuya.

At the world premiere on July 23, 2018 at the Science Museum in Tokyo, Altera 2, the predecessor of Alter 3 to appear this time, is in charge of conducting and vocal. The world’s first shocking performance, sung by an Android conductor, has become a hot topic in Japan and abroad. In the performance in Dusseldorf, Germany, announced on March 13, 2019, Alter 3 was newly developed for conducting and singing. Equipped with a camera censors on both eyes, a vocal function from the mouth, a finer movement function of the fingertips, etc. compared to the predecessor Alter 2, the dynamic movement is acquired with more powerful athletic ability.