The Whole Earth Chanting
Radar, University of Loughborough2021
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‘The Whole Earth Chanting’ is a new work which will exist both as a performance and recording. Pushing against widespread uses of artificial intelligence to manage (supposed) risks in the service of the status quo, the artist and quantum physicist Libby Heaney is working with the musician Nabihah Iqbal to open it up to the unknown, taking a risk in the process so as to be open to new modes of experience and relation.
‘The Whole Earth Chanting’ uses the power of voice, sound and music, and the intimacy of performance to explore new expressions of belonging and collective identity between humans and non-humans - a post-human spiritualism, entangling human perception with the material world. During the performance, musician Iqbal will respond to chants generated by artificial intelligence, which was trained by Heaney on data ranging from Gregorian Chanting to the humming of equipment in the quantum physics lab. As religious chants blur with football fans’ singing, birds and Iqbal's voice, the boundaries of categories through which we usually understand the world are dissolved, creating a transcendental journey enabling the ‘other’ to enter and transform.
Artwork by Libby Heaney.