How has our technology come to shape us, especially following a year when we turned to our devices for connection—when we learned, loved, grieved, and shared in life milestones through our screens?
It’s a provocative idea that piqued the interest of artist Moses Sumney, the rising star who turned heads in 2020 with a stunning TV debut on Late Night with Stephen Colbert and won widespread acclaim with his double album grae. And it’s a question he seeks to answer in technoechophenomena, his experiential audiovisual installation launching at Pioneer Works in Brooklyn’s Red Hook Labs this September.
From social media self-documentation to advertising's algorithmic automation, in the midst of the echo, what do we teach our technology—and what does it teach us?
Moses Sumney
Conceived during lockdown, technoechophenomena explores the convergence of isolation and technology, and how this relates to echophenomena—that is, the unintentional ways we pick up and imitate the words, sounds, and movements around us.
The experience begins in a custom-built cubic room, where visitors learn a series of gestures choreographed by Sumney. His song “Me in 20 Years” pumps through the room as the lights come up. Then, using Microsoft’s Azure Kinect body-tracking technology, participants can manipulate the room. Different motions provoke responses to the light and shadows and alter the music’s elements as they shift Sumney’s voice through octaves, reverberations, and space. The technology enables each guest to have a powerful, out-of-body experience that is totally unique to them.
For Sumney, creating an installation that brings together music, art, and technology is a reflection of how he views himself as an artist in a world where rigid categories are increasingly being blurred and broken down entirely.
“All of my art comes from a need to explore a concept or ask a question. I choose the best medium to make that inquiry,” says Sumney. “Music is not always the best medium, although it is my first. We are all consuming, all of the time. It makes sense that we would want to create in different disciplines as well.”
Creating and connecting with the Kinect
technoechophenomena isn’t the first time Sumney tapped music, art, and technology to explore new ideas. When coronavirus happened, throwing his well-laid world tour plans for a loop, he sought out new, multi-media ways to connect with audiences.
“My ultimate goal is to have an emotional connection with people—to have people think of things in a way they haven’t before, either musically or just thinking to feel,” says Sumney. But how do you achieve that kind of connection when you can’t physically interact with an audience?
“How can I make compelling art during social distancing about isolation, without being redundant or insensitive?”
- Moses Sumney
To answer those questions, Sumney turned to frequent artistic collaborator Sam Cannon and the Azure Kinect DK. They worked together to create a striking performance piece for his track, “Bless Me.” With no in-person experience possible—no crowds, but also no light show, no fog machine, no multi-channel surround sound that most artists (and fans) use and appreciate—Sumney focused on creating an incredible video, leaning into technology to make this 2D output feel a little more three dimensional.
While he was social distancing in his home in Ashville, North Carolina, Cannon was working from Virginia. The two hashed out a creative treatment and capture strategy over Skype calls and email: They would co-direct the video, with Sumney setting up the Azure Kinect in his living room; Cannon would direct his movements remotely over Skype; and Sumney’s poses would be captured by the Kinect, to be translated into stirring animations by visual artist Luigi Honorat based in Tokyo.
“The ability to easily capture the skeleton and point-cloud data from his performance opened up a whole new world of possibilities.”
- Sam Cannon
“I’m always interested in the intersection between humans and machines, so I’m looking for the synthesis between art that feels raw, organic, and sincere—and art that exploits technological advancements, often in order to produce a critique of that same technology or modern society … The vision [for this piece] is a live performance that feels elevated beyond a typical live video, employing hyperreal visual effects that take the viewer on a spiritual journey.”
The Azure Kinect helped make this vision possible. “This is the first time I’ve worked with the Azure Kinect and I was very excited to introduce a new way for Moses to manipulate and control what we see,” says Cannon.
As an artist regularly able to transport audiences through transcendent live performances full of gut-wrenching lyrics, breathtaking vocal runs, and soaring instrumentation, Sumney proves that tech can be a tool in service of that emotional connection and magnetism—even when the audience is hundreds of miles away.
