Opening of a brand-new version of Machine Auguries by Alexandra Daisy Ginsberg, featuring birds and dawn light from the Umeå Region.
The event will include an inaugural speech by Museum Director Katarina Pierre, followed by a discussion with Keith Larson, Director, Arctic Centre at Umeå University.
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With AI-generated birdsong under an artificial dawn sky, Machine Auguries warns of our infatuation with technology at the expense of nature. Using thousands of field recordings of local and migratory birds, Alexandra Daisy Ginsberg has trained a pair of neural networks – a form of machine learning – to sing like these different bird species. We are no longer sure what is real as the chorus falls silent at the end of the work. Here at Bildmuseet we can experience three iterations of the chorus presented together for the first time: first dawn in London, 2019, then Toledo, Ohio, 2023, and from January 12, 2025, a new site-specific Umeå version. The Umeå version will be installed on January 8-9, and the hall will be closed during these dates.
Alexandra Daisy Ginsberg (b. 1982) is a multidisciplinary artist based in London. Her work has been shown worldwide, including at MoMA, New York; the Museum of Contemporary Art, Tokyo; the Centre Pompidou, Paris; and the Royal Academy, London. This is the artist’s first solo presentation in Sweden.
With support from Kempestiftelserna, the Arctic Centre at Umeå University and WASP-HS. Special thanks to the Cornell Lab of Ornithology | Macaulay Library.
