2024
Singers, each with a smartphone and set of headphones
Variable duration, 3 mins

Beyond its installation format, Keywords Karaoke has also been reinterpreted through live performance. The Musarc choir adapted Gavin Bryars’ piece 1, 2, 1 - 3 - 4, incorporating elements of Keywords Karaoke into their structured improvisation. Wearing headphones, just as in Bryars’ original performance, the singers were each instructed to listen to one of the AI-generated karaoke tracks and vocalise a specific element—one singer mimicking the main vocals, another the guitar, another the drums—without hearing what the others were doing. The result was a beautiful cacophony, a fractured yet harmonic reinterpretation of AI-generated music, where each performer was perfectly in tune with the machine, yet completely isolated from the collective whole.

This approach created a striking metaphor for our private, individual relationships with AI agents—where each person interacts with algorithmic systems in their own personal, disconnected, and often opaque way, unaware of how others experience the same technological influence. The performance expanded Keywords Karaoke beyond the installation format, revealing new ways of engaging with
AI-driven composition, structured improvisation, and audience participation.

Installation View at HS Projects London