Autoplay creator and Darkroom Contemporary founder Louise Coetzer talks about the creative process, thinking and experience of making Africa’s first AI opera.
Question: What inspired ‘Autoplay’? Where did the idea to use AI in this way come from?
Answer: I am always interested in working with technology. I think it’s a tool we have access to that allows us to make work that has never been seen before. Audiences can often get bored with seeing the same type of shows, and technology allows us to break out of that. And I’m very interested in that. AI became a tool to make work that was outside of what I had ever made before. To me, AI was a question mark. How do we work with computers as creative partners?
Q: Please walk me through a bit of your creative process and AI’s role in that?
A: Initially I started out with a lot of research and trying to understand AI’s worldview. And in doing that it became clear that AI systems are not neutral. They have biases depending on the country or company that made them. None of them have neutrality. And that kind of got me thinking about what happens to our autonomy, our ability to have freedom of choice. The process was all about critical engagement with AI. Trying to understand it, critique it and also train it. I’d feed it my previous projects and it would generate different versions of the piece. The outputs were often predictable and simple, but sometimes surprising. It was helpful in the creative process and would lead my thoughts in different directions.
Q: This piece has so many moving parts and real-time changes. What was the rehearsal process like?
A: It’s a 2024 piece, so we all know it very well now. We kind of have a script of what each scene is about and all the blocking and choreography is solid. It’s very detailed and everyone knows what needs to happen, because there are pieces of choreography happening on the side too and props need to move and everything needs to be in the right place.
We then bring the music in, which is mostly always changing. There are set pieces, but sections are generated in real time using generative music programmes and software. And audiences see and hear that process of an organic sound becoming something that has been manipulated by a machine.
We also have two different endings, with two different musical approaches and choreography. The performers only see what it is once the audience decides, so they have to be ready for either.
Q: Can you tell me a bit more about the physicality involved in executing such specific and extreme choreography?
A: It needed performers who are really committed. We’ve had such a strong response, and the audience has reacted to it on an emotional level. The cast is really the vehicle for that; they’re really pushing themselves to the limit and bring a high level of emotion and intensity to it.
It feels erratic and so unknown and strange to be interacting with things that aren’t human in the way we interact with AI now. Inspiration was drawn from that, so the movements are bizarre and weird sometimes. We took inspiration from early generative AI art, where you’d have this beautiful figure generated but a hand or foot would be deformed or out of place.
Q: In a world where generative AI threatens to take over creative processes entirely, what was the thought process of ‘teaming up’ with AI in a sense?
A: When AI just came out it was so bizarre. So surreal. You almost couldn’t believe it and all these crazy things it can do. It’s something we thought was great, but then became scary, and still is. Is it just turning us into controlled human beings?
But if you can use it for something it wasn’t designed for, that’s when it becomes interesting. For me AI wasn’t used because I don’t have ideas, it was used to amplify the concept. How could we engage this technology in ways it’s not meant for? How could we incorporate AI into a live performance? It was not meant to make a complex opera work, but we did.
The production isn’t meant to give any answers. I don’t have the answers, it’s about what’s actually happening.
The final performance of Autoplay is at the Drill Hall on June 29 from 7pm until 8.15pm.
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