Nao Tokui^JP

Nao Tokui is an artist/DJ, researcher, and founder of Qosmo, an AI creative studio based in Japan. While pursuing his Ph.D. at The University of Tokyo, he released his first music album and singles, including a 12-inch record with Nujabes, a legendary Japanese hip-hop producer. Since then, he has been exploring the potential augmentation of human creativity through the use of AI.

His works have been exhibited at the New York MoMA, Barbican Centre (London), InterCommunication Center (Tokyo), and more. In addition, he published his first book on AI and creativity in January 2021. He is currently working on an English version of the book due in early 2023.

Nao Tokui ^JP — Emergent Rhythm (AI Generative Live Set)

Through this AI DJ project, we have been exploring the future of DJ performance with AI. At first, we tried to make an AI-based music selection system as an AI DJ. In the second iteration, we utilized a few AI models on stage to generate real-time symbolic music(i.e., MIDI). In the performance, A human DJ (Tokui) controlled various parameters of the generative AI models and drum machines. This time, we aim to advance one step further and deploy AI models to generate audio on stage in near real-time. Everything you hear during the performance will be pure AI-generation (no synthesizer, no drum machine).

In this performance, Emergent Rhythm, the human DJ will become an AJ or "AI Jocky" instead of a Disk Jocky, and he is expected to tame and ride the AI-generated audio stream in real-time. The distinctive characteristics of AI-based audio generation and "morphing" will provide a unique and even otherworldly sonic experience for the audience.