ruin /ˈruːɪn/ 1) the physical destruction or disintegration of something or the state of disintegrating or being destroyed. 2) The remains of a building, city, or structure that has been destroyed or has decayed, often associated with the remnants of ancient civilizations or abandoned place. 3) A state of complete disorder, collapse, or decay, often referring to a person’s circumstances. 

Commissioned by IRCAM Forum for Abo Abo, this performance delves into the intersection of music, technology, and AI using software developed by the Paris-based music research center IRCAM. Abo’s performance proposes a distinct and unconventional approach, diverging from the typical workflows of these two advanced tools: RAVE, developed by the ACIDS team, and Somax2, created by the ERC REACH team.  

RAVE (Realtime Audio Variational autoEncoder) is a deep learning framework for audio synthesis, enabling fast generation of high-quality sound by training neural network models on audio data. 

Somax2 is an AI-powered tool for musical improvisation, incorporating machine listening, cognitive memory, and multi-agent architecture for real-time control and composition. 

The performance establishes a relationship between turntables, modular synthesizers, and AI-driven tools, creating a complex and cohesive system. The audio experience is further enhanced by a video component managed by performer and visual artist Tania Cortés Becerra, whose work creates an audio-reactive connection between sound and image, enriching the overall performance. 

The first performance, streamed live from Studio 5 at IRCAM in Paris, concluded with a discussion between the artists and developers. Together, they explored the technologies employed, highlighting Abo’s innovative and non-standard use of these tools, which sets his approach apart from conventional applications. This session offered an opportunity to reflect on the future of artistic practices and the potential of AI applied to music and live performance.

Concept, composition, performance: Daniele Carcassi (Abo Abo) 
Visual design and live video: Tania Cortés Becerra 
Rave software: ACIDS team (Giovanni Bindi)
Somax2 software: ERC REACH team (Marco Fiorini)
Forum Studio team: Paola Palumbo, Guillaume Piccarreta, Vincent Martos, Karin Laenen
Production team: Grégoire Lavaud (sound engineering), Bastien Sabarros (video recording) 
 
This work was developed in the context of Forum Studio Session 2 forum.ircam.fr , and used software and technologies from Ircam Labs. 

RAVE is a deep neural audio model created by Antoine Caillon and Philippe Esling and the ACIDS group from IRCAM, Paris. 
Somax2 is a cocreative AI program for human-machine improvisation developed at Ircam under the project ERC REACH supported by the European Research Council and the French National Research agency.