Peñalosa’s Lamentationes Jeremiae Feria V is a highly structured composition with almost mathematical rigor. Performed here by the acclaimed vocal quartet New York Polyphony, the work is a setting of the purported poetic reflections of the Prophet Jeremiah on the destruction of Jerusalem in 586 BC. It opens with Jeremiah weeping at the abandonment of God, and while there is no promise of deliverance, the very act of lamentation is a profound statement of resilience. The music overlays Jeremiah’s despondency with an aura of hope and humanity that speaks to the potential for revitalization.
This visual project is based on finding a methodology appropriate to complexities at play in the music both in terms of composition and emotional expression of the work. The starting place was to reflect on how the Lamentations speak to our contemporary times. The sense of ruin and loss evoked the climate crises and we found the idea that the lament could provide a way forward in the face of hopelessness compelling.
We developed a machine learning approach to generating the video — matching the highly ordered vocal composition. The AI model we used analyzes a sequence of video and abstracts patterns it finds within it. Once the model has been trained it can generate new video based on those patterns. Then we developed a method of visualizing the complex interplay of the voices of the quartet. This allowed us to “seed” the AI model so that as the video was being generated it was reactive to the voices. The process was volatile with any element in the sources, training or voice visualization radically shifting the results. Our hope is that you’ll find this reciprocal approach resonant and evocative of New York Polyphony’s rich performance.
Lamentationes Jeremiae Feria V appears on New York Polyphony’s BIS Records 2019 release Lamentationes.
Artificial Intelligence Creative Practice Research Group: Colin Ives —Creative Director/Video production, Zachary Boyt —Sonic Coding, Holly Newlands —Visual Coding
New York Polyphony: Geoffrey Williams —Countertenor, Steven Caldicott Wilson —Tenor, Christopher Dylan Herbert —Baritone, Craig Phillips —Bass