Events

Join us at Strange Brew for an evening of improvised performance and conversation with composer, improvising guitarist and sound artist Craig Scott.

Working with human performers, robotics, custom built digital and analogue hardware, Craig's work is wildly inventive and reflects on the tension that exists between human and machine-made music.

Craig Scott is the recipient of our Patterns in Practice Artist Residency - an opportunity to develop ideas and conversations exploring data mining and machine learning. For the last three months, Craig has been resident at Pervasive Media Studio exploring our evolving human relationship with technological appendages, its effect on personal and collective mental health, perception of reality and how we relate to our own bodies, tools and each other.

The Residency is part of a wider research project led by the University of Sheffield and UWE Bristol, funded by UKRI.

During his time in Bristol, Craig - originally from Scotland - has built a new form of guitar that he will perform with at this event. It uses machine learning and curated data sets to partially control the instrument whilst it is played by an improvising musician. Craig's approach uses machine learning as a response to the improvising musician to explore how dataset bias affects real world outcomes.

The event will feature an introduction to the work, performance and conversation between Craig Scott, Sambourne Bush and Erinma Ochu- all members of the Patterns in Practice research team.

At a time where conversations about the impacts of artificial intelligence within creativity and the wider world are ever more present, this work offers a unique perspective on the extensions and amputations that can result from these new automated technological appendages.

This is a pay what you can event. That means if you can contribute, that's great as every contribution helps Watershed stage events like this. But if you can't contribute this time, that's fine too. We look forward to welcoming you!

More about the Patterns in Practice research project

Patterns in Practice is a research project that seeks to enhance understanding of how human beliefs, values and feelings affect how we engage with data mining (the practice of analysing large databases in order to generate new information) and machine learning (computer systems that are able to learn and adapt without following explicit instructions, by using algorithms and statistical models to analyse and draw inferences from patterns in data).

After three years of talking with people in the fields of drug discovery, higher education and the arts – the partners in the project have gained a wealth of insight and material about the data cultures that emerge when information, machine processes and people come together.

This residency was an opportunity for Craig to delve into the research and develop artwork in response to what he found. We are delighted to share the results of this work.