On January 31, ABSOLUT is launching The ABSOLUT Machines, two artificially creative and highly interactive music-making machines, as visually stunning as they are technologically pioneering. Users from around the world will be able to interact with the machines over the Internet. The musical input from online users will be processed by the machines, which will respond with a unique musical composition – co-created by man and machine. The machines will immediately perform the songs, and their performances will be live-streamed to a global audience at absolutmachines.com.

Dan Paluska and Jeff Lieberman have created the ABSOLUT QUARTET, a large-scale electromechanical sculpture consisting of three instruments and thousands of parts, working together to create one piece of music.

The main timbre is a marimba played by balls shot from a robotic cannon. Other components include a series of wineglasses played by little robotic fingers and an array of robotic percussive instruments. Online users first provide a melody theme, which is heard over a speaker near the machine. The machine interprets the melody and then comes up with its own version, which it starts playing. It also matches the user-generated melody with a composition from its algorithmic music library. As the machine plays, the user can interact and inspire the machine to play in different ways. The result is a complex robotically generated song, co-produced by man and machine - and performed live by the “Quartet”.

Teenage Engineering has constructed the ABSOLUT CHOIR, an architectural installation with an advanced framework of speech synthesizers and artificial intelligence software at the back end. A multi-channel robotic choir made up by 10 singing characters of various shapes and sizes, each of the men, women, tenors and sopranos has a unique and synthetically produced voice. The mother character holds a master clock - and each character contains a small, embedded Linux device, a DA converter and a speaker, making it possible to distribute sounds and to virtually conduct the members of the choir.

As the Choir starts singing, the user may input words to the machine. As the machine receives the words, it immediately uses them to generate a musical composition and lyrics. The robotic choir follows the lead of its human partner, and with the help of generative algorithms, the machine engenders a melody, tempo, dynamics, timbre and lyrics inspired by the user-generated input. The composition is also infused with the machine’s current mood and from the most recently analyzed words input by previous users. A lot of short words with many consonants may result in a fast arpeggio-like song, while softer words may result in a slower composition. As a result of co-production between man and machine, ABSOLUT CHOIR creates a harmonic, yet surrealistic sound palette.

As there are only a limited number of time slots available, you will need to sign up for a pass to ensure you get a chance to interact with the machines.