Grainger Creative Research Residency 2023 - Monica Lim
Monica Lim – THE FREE MUSIC MACHINE (July to December 2023)
What if the entire Grainger Museum, including the people inside it, was turned into one living, breathing sound instrument that could finally free Grainger’s music from the bondages of his time and life? This project draws together Grainger’s original conception of music made machines with current experiments in generative AI, feeding Grainger’s recordings into a dataset to generate new mutations of his music, to make him live again through the algorithms of a non-human. Outcomes will include a performance making use of Lim’s electromagnetic piano technology, and potential open workshops on generative AI and music and music and physical computing.
Biography:
Monica is a Melbourne-based sound artist, researcher and composer. She is interested in cross-disciplinary forms and the intersection of new technologies with music. Her work spans and combines theatre, contemporary dance, installations, video, ensemble performance, Extended Reality, AI and gaming technology, and has been presented at Arts House, AsiaTOPA, Science Gallery Melbourne, White Night, Melbourne Fringe, Bundoora Homestead Arts Centre, Liquid Architecture and Arts Centre Melbourne as well as international symposiums such as ISEA (International Symposium for Electronic Arts) and NIME (New Interfaces for Musical Expression). She has worked extensively in cross-cultural collaborations, particularly with artists from Southeast Asia, with a deep curiosity about cultural traditions and their potential collision with new technologies in order to break down false divisions between traditional/new media art.
Monica is currently undertaking her PhD in Interactive Composition at the University of Melbourne, researching the body as a site for participatory sound-making. She is part of the research team at VCA Dance’s TrakLAB and the University of Melbourne’s Centre for Artificial Intelligence and Digital Ethics. Within the community, Monica serves on the boards of the Melbourne Recital Centre, the Substation and Liquid Architecture and is co-founder of Project Eleven, a philanthropic initiative which supports the contemporary arts.