Tag Archives: Alexis Kirke

Live music by teleportation? Catch up. It’s already happened.

Dr. Alexis Kirke first graced this blog about four years ago, in a July 8, 2016 posting titled, Cornwall (UK) connects with University of Southern California for performance by a quantum computer (D-Wave) and mezzo soprano Juliette Pochin.

Kirke now returns with a study showing how teleportation helped to create a live performance piece, from a July 2, 2020 news item on ScienceDaily,

Teleportation is most commonly the stuff of science fiction and, for many, would conjure up the immortal phrase “Beam me up, Scotty.”

However, a new study has described how its status in science fact could actually be employed as another, and perhaps unlikely, form of entertainment — live music.

Dr Alexis Kirke, Senior Research Fellow in the Interdisciplinary Centre for Computer Music Research at the University of Plymouth (UK), has for the first time shown that a human musician can communicate directly with a quantum computer via teleportation.

The result is a high-tech jamming session, through which a blend of live human and computer-generated sounds come together to create a unique performance piece.

A July 2, 2020 Plymouth University press release (also on EurekAlert), which originated the news item, offers more detail about this latest work along with some information about the 2016 performance and how it all provides insight into how quantum computing might function in the future,

Speaking about the study, published in the current issue of the Journal of New Music Research, Dr Kirke said: “The world is racing to build the first practical and powerful quantum computers, and whoever succeeds first will have a scientific and military advantage because of the extreme computing power of these machines. This research shows for the first time that this much-vaunted advantage can also be helpful in the world of making and performing music. No other work has shown this previously in the arts, and it demonstrates that quantum power is something everyone can appreciate and enjoy.”

Quantum teleportation is the ability to instantaneously transmit quantum information over vast distances, with scientists having previously used it to send information from Earth to an orbiting satellite over 870 miles away.

In the current study, Dr Kirke describes how he used a system called MIq (Multi-Agent Interactive qgMuse), in which an IBM quantum computer executes a methodology called Grover’s Algorithm.

Discovered by Lov Grover at Bell Labs in 1996, it was the second main quantum algorithm (after Shor’s algorithm) and gave a huge advantage over traditional computing.

In this instance, it allows the dynamic solving of musical logical rules which, for example, could prevent dissonance or keep to ¾ instead of common time.

It is significantly faster than any classical computer algorithm, and Dr Kirke said that speed was essential because there is actually no way to transmit quantum information other than through teleportation.

The result was that when played the theme from Game of Thrones on the piano, the computer – a 14-qubit machine housed at IBM in Melbourne – rapidly generated accompanying music that was transmitted back in response.

Dr Kirke, who in 2016 staged the first ever duet between a live singer and a quantum supercomputer, said: “At the moment there are limits to how complex a real-time computer jamming system can be. The number of musical rules that a human improviser knows intuitively would simply take a computer too long to solve to real-time music. Shortcuts have been invented to speed up this process in rule-based AI music, but using the quantum computer speed-up has not be tried before. So while teleportation cannot move information faster than the speed of light, if remote collaborators want to connect up their quantum computers – which they are using to increase the speed of their musical AIs – it is 100% necessary. Quantum information simply cannot be transmitted using normal digital transmission systems.”

Caption: Dr Alexis Kirke (right) and soprano Juliette Pochin during the first duet between a live singer and a quantum supercomputer. Credit: University of Plymouth

Here’s a link to and a citation for the latest research,

Testing a hybrid hardware quantum multi-agent system architecture that utilizes the quantum speed advantage for interactive computer music by Alexis Kirke. Journal of New Music Research Volume 49, 2020 – Issue 3 Pages 209-230 DOI: https://doi.org/10.1080/09298215.2020.1749672 Published online: 13 Apr 2020

This paper appears to be open access.

Cornwall (UK) connects with University of Southern California for performance by a quantum computer (D-Wave) and mezzo soprano Juliette Pochin

The upcoming performance of a quantum computer built by D-Wave Systems (a Canadian company) and Welsh mezzo soprano Juliette Pochin is the première of “Superposition” by Alexis Kirke. A July 13, 2016 news item on phys.org provides more detail,

What happens when you combine the pure tones of an internationally renowned mezzo soprano and the complex technology of a $15million quantum supercomputer?

The answer will be exclusively revealed to audiences at the Port Eliot Festival [Cornwall, UK] when Superposition, created by Plymouth University composer Alexis Kirke, receives its world premiere later this summer.

A D-Wave 1000 Qubit Quantum Processor. Credit: D-Wave Systems Inc

A D-Wave 1000 Qubit Quantum Processor. Credit: D-Wave Systems Inc

A July 13, 2016 Plymouth University press release, which originated the news item, expands on the theme,

Combining the arts and sciences, as Dr Kirke has done with many of his previous works, the 15-minute piece will begin dark and mysterious with celebrated performer Juliette Pochin singing a low-pitched slow theme.

But gradually the quiet sounds of electronic ambience will emerge over or beneath her voice, as the sounds of her singing are picked up by a microphone and sent over the internet to the D-Wave quantum computer at the University of Southern California.

It then reacts with behaviours in the quantum realm that are turned into sounds back in the performance venue, the Round Room at Port Eliot, creating a unique and ground-breaking duet.

And when the singer ends, the quantum processes are left to slowly fade away naturally, making their final sounds as the lights go to black.

Dr Kirke, a member of the Interdisciplinary Centre for Computer Music Research at Plymouth University, said:

“There are only a handful of these computers accessible in the world, and this is the first time one has been used as part of a creative performance. So while it is a great privilege to be able to put this together, it is an incredibly complex area of computing and science and it has taken almost two years to get to this stage. For most people, this will be the first time they have seen a quantum computer in action and I hope it will give them a better understanding of how it works in a creative and innovative way.”

Plymouth University is the official Creative and Cultural Partner of the Port Eliot Festival, taking place in South East Cornwall from July 28 to 31, 2016 [emphasis mine].

And Superposition will be one of a number of showcases of University talent and expertise as part of the first Port Eliot Science Lab. Being staged in the Round Room at Port Eliot, it will give festival goers the chance to explore science, see performances and take part in a range of experiments.

The three-part performance will tell the story of Niobe, one of the more tragic figures in Greek mythology, but in this case a nod to the fact the heart of the quantum computer contains the metal named after her, niobium. It will also feature a monologue from Hamlet, interspersed with terms from quantum computing.

This is the latest of Dr Kirke’s pioneering performance works, with previous productions including an opera based on the financial crisis and a piece using a cutting edge wave-testing facility as an instrument of percussion.

Geordie Rose, CTO and Founder, D-Wave Systems, said:

“D-Wave’s quantum computing technology has been investigated in many areas such as image recognition, machine learning and finance. We are excited to see Dr Kirke, a pioneer in the field of quantum physics and the arts, utilising a D-Wave 2X in his next performance. Quantum computing is positioned to have a tremendous social impact, and Dr Kirke’s work serves not only as a piece of innovative computer arts research, but also as a way of educating the public about these new types of exotic computing machines.”

Professor Daniel Lidar, Director of the USC Center for Quantum Information Science and Technology, said:

“This is an exciting time to be in the field of quantum computing. This is a field that was purely theoretical until the 1990s and now is making huge leaps forward every year. We have been researching the D-Wave machines for four years now, and have recently upgraded to the D-Wave 2X – the world’s most advanced commercially available quantum optimisation processor. We were very happy to welcome Dr Kirke on a short training residence here at the University of Southern California recently; and are excited to be collaborating with him on this performance, which we see as a great opportunity for education and public awareness.”

Since I can’t be there, I’m hoping they will be able to successfully livestream the performance. According to Kirke who very kindly responded to my query, the festival’s remote location can make livecasting a challenge. He did note that a post-performance documentary is planned and there will be footage from the performance.

He has also provided more information about the singer and the technical/computer aspects of the performance (from a July 18, 2016 email),

Juliette Pochin: I’ve worked with her before a couple of years ago. She has an amazing voice and style, is musically adventurousness (she is a music producer herself), and brings great grace and charisma to a performance. She can be heard in the Harry Potter and Lord of the Rings soundtracks and has performed at venues such as the Royal Albert Hall, Proms in the Park, and Meatloaf!

Score: The score is in 3 parts of about 5 minutes each. There is a traditional score for parts 1 and 3 that Juliette will sing from. I wrote these manually in traditional music notation. However she can sing in free time and wait for the computer to respond. It is a very dramatic score, almost operatic. The computer’s responses are based on two algorithms: a superposition chord system, and a pitch-loudness entanglement system. The superposition chord system sends a harmony problem to the D-Wave in response to Juliette’s approximate pitch amongst other elements. The D-Wave uses an 8-qubit optimizer to return potential chords. Each potential chord has an energy associated with it. In theory the lowest energy chord is that preferred by the algorithm. However in the performance I will combine the chord solutions to create superposition chords. These are chords which represent, in a very loose way, the superposed solutions which existed in the D-Wave before collapse of the qubits. Technically they are the results of multiple collapses, but metaphorically I can’t think of a more beautiful representation of superposition: chords. These will accompany Juliette, sometimes clashing with her. Sometimes giving way to her.

The second subsystem generates non-pitched noises of different lengths, roughnesses and loudness. These are responses to Juliette, but also a result of a simple D-Wave entanglement. We know the D-Wave can entangle in 8-qubit groups. I send a binary representation of the Juliette’s loudness to 4 qubits and one of approximate pitch to another 4, then entangle the two. The chosen entanglement weights are selected for their variety of solutions amongst the qubits, rather than by a particular musical logic. So the non-pitched subsystem is more of a sonification of entanglement than a musical algorithm.

Thank you Dr. Kirke for a fascinating technical description and for a description of Juliette Pochin that makes one long to hear her in performance.

For anyone who’s thinking of attending the performance or curious, you can find out more about the Port Eliot festival here, Juliette Pochin here, and Alexis Kirke here.

For anyone wondering about data sonficiatiion, I also have a Feb. 7, 2014 post featuring a data sonification project by Dr. Domenico Vicinanza which includes a sound clip of his Voyager 1 & 2 spacecraft duet.