Alexis Kirke is a composer and filmmaker known for his interdisciplinary practice. He has been called "the Philip K. Dick of contemporary music". Alexis is British and lives in Plymouth, in South West England. Alexis says he takes his inspiration from both the Arts and from Science/Technology – and has two doctorates – one from each of those Faculties at Plymouth University. In particular, his highest profile work has been motivated by interests in

quantum mechanics Quantum mechanics is a fundamental theory in physics that provides a description of the physical properties of nature at the scale of atoms and subatomic particles. It is the foundation of all quantum physics including quantum chemistr ...

marine science Oceanography (), also known as oceanology and ocean science, is the scientific study of the oceans. It is an Earth science, which covers a wide range of topics, including ecosystem dynamics; ocean currents, waves, and geophysical fluid dyna ...

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artificial intelligence Artificial intelligence (AI) is intelligence—perceiving, synthesizing, and inferring information—demonstrated by machines, as opposed to intelligence displayed by animals and humans. Example tasks in which this is done include speech r ...

. Alexis is senior research fellow at the Interdisciplinary Centre for Computer Music Research at the Plymouth University, and is composer-in-residence for the Plymouth Marine Institute.

Sound projects

Alexis' most recent musical projects have involved the use of controlled quantum dynamics to create quantum computer music. His first in this field was ''Superposition'', a collaboration with the University of Southern California, a live duet between acclaimed Mezzo Soprano Juliette Pochin and the D-Wave quantum annealer installed at USC. Alexis' follow-up performance using the D-Wave was ''Entangled Brains'' - for which he developed a computer music system that entangled the brainwave data of two performers wearing

EEG Electroencephalography (EEG) is a method to record an electrogram of the spontaneous electrical activity of the brain. The biosignals detected by EEG have been shown to represent the postsynaptic potentials of pyramidal neurons in the neocortex ...

headsets. The resulting data from the D-Wave's calculations on the pair's brainwaves was used to drive an electronic music performance. Kirke switched his attention to actual gate-based quantum computers, delivering ''Teleporting from Westeros'', the first live performance utilizing algorithms shown to have a quantum advantage: a teleportation-based multi-agent system where agents use

Grover's algorithm In quantum computing, Grover's algorithm, also known as the quantum search algorithm, refers to a quantum algorithm for unstructured search that finds with high probability the unique input to a black box function that produces a particular output ...

to interact with a human musician. Alexis also celebrated the 60th Anniversary of Lennon and McCartney meeting with ''Come Together''. Other projects in recent years include ''Bat Wars: The Four Awaken'', in which a violinist and pianist duet with a live AI-generated script based on characters from iconic movies, ''Conducting Shakespeare'', wherein he remixed Shakespeare live for two actors at the Victoria and Albert Museum, based on the real-time bio-signal readings of four audience members; and ''Remember a Day'', which was a collaboration with a lady with Alzheimer's setting her daily plan and medication reminders to music as an aid to memory, and performing the tunes as part of a piece for mezzo-soprano, cello and electronics. Prior to that Alexis created ''Sound-Wave'', wherein he turned a

wave tank A wave tank is a laboratory setup for observing the behavior of surface waves. The typical wave tank is a box filled with liquid, usually water, leaving open or air-filled space on top. At one end of the tank, an actuator generates waves; the ...

into a giant musical instrument for the opening of the Plymouth Marine Institute building by the Duke of Edinburgh; and the financial "reality opera" ''Open Outcry'', in which performers trade real money by singing, sponsored by Barclays. Alexis initially gained recognition for his performance ''Sunlight Symphony'', which turned the University of Plymouth's iconic Roland Levinsky Building into a musical instrument played by the rising sun. His first performance supported by Plymouth Marine Institute was ''Fast Travel'', in which a saxophonist interacted with live artificially-intelligent whale schools. Other prominent works include ''Cloud Chamber'' with a violinist playing a duet with subatomic particles in real-time – and ''Insight'' in which Alexis (who has the harmless visual condition

palinopsia Palinopsia (Greek: ''palin'' for "again" and ''opsia'' for "seeing") is the persistent recurrence of a visual image after the stimulus has been removed. Palinopsia is not a diagnosis; it is a diverse group of pathological visual symptoms with a wid ...

) simulated his hallucinations live on an

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, which were turned into sound accompanied by a flautist. Alexis has collaborated with composers and performers such as John Matthias,

Eduardo Reck Miranda Eduardo Reck Miranda (born 1963) is a Brazilian composer of chamber and electroacoustic pieces but is most notable in the United Kingdom for his scientific research into computer music, particularly in the field of human-machine interfaces wh ...

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Lola Perrin Lola Perrin is a minimalist composer and pianist with jazz influences. She is American (with roots in the Ukraine and Hungary) and lives in London. She is the sister of jazz and world music composer and pianist Roland Perrin. Lola says she takes h ...

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Martyn Ware Martyn Ware (born 19 May 1956) is an English musician, composer, arranger, record producer, and music programmer. As a founding member of both the Human League and Heaven 17, Ware was partly responsible for hit songs such as "Being Boiled" and " ...

Film projects

Alexis' best known film project is the writing, directing, and soundtracking of the short film ''Many Worlds'' (2013) – a 15-minute movie about a human version of a Schrodinger's Suicide experiment. The movie has four possible scripts, with four possible endings. All four scripts were filmed, and then bio-signals are collected from a sample of the audience live during the screening; a computer used this data to select live which version of the film is shown at any moment, depending on how bored or interested the audience is at the time. The film has premiered at the Peninsula Arts Contemporary Music Festival 2013, had invited showings in Israel and at BBC Research and Development, and won a Media Innovation Award in 2014. Alexis' second short film in 2017 was "Buddha of Superposition", an 11-minute short that uses innovative visual and sound techniques to take the viewer inside of the experience of psychosis. The film features actor Lois Meleri-Jones.

Sound projects

Film projects

References

See also