A hidden tunnel was found beneath a dresser in New York City’s Merchant House Museum, which is the only 19th-century home in the city that is preserved intact, both inside and out. The tunnel, which is about 2 feet wide and 2 feet long, could only be revealed by pulling the bottom drawer completely out of the dresser.
The concealed room likely served as a safe house for slaves trying to escape by way of the underground railroad, especially during the early and mid-1800s. White abolitionists were rare in New York at the time the building was constructed in 1832, but it is believed the original owner, Joseph Brewster, was one of the few willing to help slaves find safe refuge.
Udio, an AI music generator and tool. (Kailey Watson, The New Feed NRV)
Many professionals in the creative technologies field have begun to explore artificial intelligence’s possible utilizations in music, although the scope has yet to be seen.
AI has made its way into seemingly all sectors of life, music being no outlier. Applications like Udio and Suno have arisen to turn written prompts into audible representations at the push of a button. There are positive applications of such software, such as assisting in co-creation and acting as an artistic tool, but there also lies the potential to strip away what some argue music is meant to be about.
Ivica Ico Bukvic has been a professor in Media Arts and Production and the inaugural Director of the Kinetic Immersion and Extended Reality (KIX) Lab at Indiana University since August of 2025. Before this, he worked at Virginia Tech for 19 years and notably is the founder and director of the Digital Interactive Sound and Intermedia Studio and the World’s first Linux-based Laptop Orchestra.
Bukvic also developed L20k Tweeter, which came into being during the Coronavirus pandemic, to bring people together by making music over the internet that could be in sync and co-created. The program encourages collaboration over any distance and differs from the traditional method of the composer and performer.
Bukvic is now looking to infuse the system with an AI co-performer and co-creator to explore how it can create a sense of comfort for those joining the group for the first time. Thus making them feel encouraged to keep playing by feeling less alone.
“Now AI becomes the connecting tissue, rather than something that steals away the creativity from humans,” Bukvic said.
Bukvic is a strong believer in the benefits of creating music, no matter the amount of training one has. “Music was always this thing that was created by humans to bring us together, to celebrate, to enjoy each other’s company, etc.,” Bukvic said. “So if we were to replace that co-creation with something that is generated through AI, in some ways, we are robbing the humanity of the elements that bring us together.”
Eric Lyon is a composer, computer musician, spatial music researcher, audio software developer, curator and professor at Virginia Tech. His work with technological applications in music began at a very young age, his first trial being recording himself playing the violin and then playing alongside this recording, a practice not unlike what’s being developed today.
Eric Lyon, performing on the computer. (Courtesy of Eric Lyon)
Amongst his many compositions, Lyon also researches ways to enhance music technologies, including publicly available software FFTease, written with Christopher Penrose, and LyonPotpourri, collections of externals written for Max/MSP and Pd.
A survey by Qodo, an AI coding platform, reported that 82% of software developers use AI coding tools daily or weekly, but 65% say it misses relevant context during critical tasks. A similar sentiment is shared by Lyon.
“I haven’t gotten to the point where I could coach the audio programming to be as good as the kind of code that I wrote 25 years ago,” Lyon said. However, he expects it to be within five years based on the strides that it is continually making.
AI has a ways to go in music composition as well. Lyon shared an example where he asked a music AI, either Udio or Suno, to write a song about the atomic bomb. The result was a cheerful tune about nuclear war, not particularly befitting for the subject matter, but something that he shared he would never have been able to come up with. A snippet of the song would become part of a piece of his.
As these AI tools stand now, Lyon noted, they do not make very good music on their own. An example he shared was of an AI that was trained on every Beatles song, and then asked to create the next 50 Beatles songs. The result was mediocre, “Not even close to the worst Beatles song,” Lyon shared. This being said, it’s unclear how AI will continue to progress, and if it is possible for this threshold for good music to be reached.
There are already AI musicians breaching into platforms like Spotify, but whether this will become the future is yet to be known. Lyon argues that there has always been a deskilling aspect to music, such as how all keyboardists used to know how to read figured bass. AI could be another step in removing areas of knowledge that are no longer seen as necessary. An extreme would be that no one has the skills to compose a piece, and music is generated simply by the push of a button.
“AI is kind of an amputation, but it feels a little bit more like brain surgery,” Lyon said.
Bukvic begs the question, “Why would you use AI to remove what was the, arguably, primary motivation for having such an activity in place in the first place?” He instead looks to the notion of co-agency, a concept in which he currently has pending projects.
He aims to develop his own AI collaborator that is trained on important parameters to assist in the process of co-creation. He shares that it could assist in live performances, as there are only so many things one can juggle in one’s mind at once, and only so many hands to carry out said things.
Lyon’s AI-related projects are titled “Eric, this is so you coded,” a whole piece coded by AI, and “How I learned to stop worrying and love the hallucinations,” a work about how AI malfunctions and gives false information. Lyon shared his goal with this piece is to answer the question, “How can you make AI worse rather than better in ways that are artistically interesting?”
AI certainly has applications in music, though whether its trajectory lies in assisting artists or becoming them will be answered with time.
“How do you create a Beethoven and then make that Beethoven make music?” Lyon said. “I mean, we’ve got 32 piano sonatas. If you could make a Beethoven and you could get 32,000, would they all be as great?”
By Aaliyah Kinsler, arts, culture, and sports reporter
Margaret Lawrence, Director of Programming for the Center for the Arts at Virginia Tech. Photo Courtesy of Rob Strong and Virginia Tech
As universities face increasing questions about representation, audience engagement and institutional responsibility, arts programming has become a large reflection of broader cultural values.
At Virginia Tech, the Center for the Arts brings professional performers from around the world to campus stages and shapes how students and the New River Valley community encounter the arts.
In an interview, Margaret Lawrence, director of programming for the Center for the Arts, discussed how those decisions are made, how audiences influence programming and why representation matters.
Her comments were edited slightly for length and clarity.
How does Virginia Tech and the Center for the Arts decide which artists and performers are featured on campus?
I can only speak for the Center for the Arts, because of course there’s lots of other stuff happening in the arts on this vast campus. We are really the center for bringing professional American and international touring performing artists, and top-notch professional visual artists.
I’m the person involved with performing artists specifically. We produce a series of between 25 and 30 performances each year, kind of balanced between the two semesters. We don’t really present much in the summer when the students aren’t here.
Our mission is to really bring the most extraordinary arts experiences here and to celebrate the diversity of kinds of art forms, of kinds of artists, of individuals. This might be the only chance a student at Virginia Tech has to see a full philharmonic orchestra, or a contemporary American dance company, or a very famous jazz artist they’ve heard of but never saw in person. This is a really formative time for students here.
What goes into deciding which artists make it into a season?
I’ve been a curator for more than 40 years. I have a lot of knowledge of the artists who are out there, not only in the U.S. but across the globe, and a lot of networks in the field with other performing arts centers.
What we try to bring together are some artists who are at the top of their game and very well known, and then artists who are emerging, who you may never have heard about. That proximity to those artists and their work is really exciting.
We’re just as interested in presenting really important music of the past as we are in premiering brand-new compositions. We even helped commission a brand-new piece that premiered here by a living composer.
Do artists reach out to you, or do you reach out to them?
All of the above. Almost all professional artists are represented by agents and management companies. They know who I am. I often pursue somebody for years before it finally comes true.
I might be in New York and have a whole bunch of meetings. We had a trio here recently that was a new project. Those artists thought of it and put it together. The minute I heard about it; I was pursuing it.
Some artists are incredibly expensive to bring, and it might take years and really creative thinking to raise the funds. When we brought Yo-Yo Ma here, the cellist, that didn’t happen overnight.
How much influence do students and community members have in programming decisions?
I’m working for at least a year and a half in advance. Right now, I’m almost done programming 2026–27, and I’m starting to work on 2027–28. That automatically changes how we approach things.
If I only brought artists that I personally love, some of those things are really esoteric. That doesn’t mean I’m going to bring it to Blacksburg. So, I try to create a real balance.
We do national touring Broadway shows because people want to see them. We see people there we might not see at any other kind of performance. That’s really important to us.
Do engagement and education factor into programming choices?
We’re not only presenting performances. We’re creating what we call engagement activities. We ask artists to do workshops, come into classes, teach master classes and do school-time matinee.
For some kids, it might be the first time they’ve ever been to a theater. Those experiences are incredibly important for showing people what the world around them is.
Have you noticed shifts in audiences over time?
We’ve built a very strong subscription base from the community. Many of them will sign up for the entire season and trust us to have a great experience.
The student percentage of attendees is very healthy. It tends to be around 23% of the audience, which is quite high. I think that’s partly because we do so much engagement with the artists.
Have any performances sparked reflection about whose voices are being elevated?
Several years ago, we brought a trans theater artist from London who did a piece about their identity. People told me, “You never would have seen a piece like this when I was a student here.”
For students and community members, it creates a sense of belonging. For everybody else, it’s about learning about the people we share this globe with.
We also brought a dance company from India collaborating with a company from Sri Lanka. A student told me it was the first year they were able to form a Sri Lankan student organization. The artists were from her hometown. Seeing that on the stage here was incredibly powerful.
Looking ahead, how should Virginia Tech continue evolving in how it presents artistic voices?
The arts are about entertainment, but they’re also about truth and self-expression. College is when people are figuring out what they stand for and what’s important to them.
The more arts we have on campus, whether through the Center for the Arts or elsewhere, the better.
By Kailey Watson, Arts, Culture and Sports reporter
Geoff White, musician and historian. (Courtesy of Geoff White)
Geoff White is a lifelong musician whose talents found their calling in Civil War-era music. Through reenactment events and lectures, White shares tunes of the time with all who will come to listen.
After moving to Virginia in 2007, he and his wife began participating in civil war reenactments. White brought his fiddle, and his journey began by wanting to have more songs to play around the campfire. He would later receive a Bachelor’s in History in 2013 from Radford University, where he was employed, and worked on studies dealing with music from the Civil War. From there, White began performing combined concerts and lectures from battlefields to retirement homes.
The following questions and answers were edited slightly for length and clarity.
How do you find the Civil War-era songs that you’re playing?
The Civil War was a unique period in history because so many of the people who fought it from the bottom up, the privates and the rankers, were literate. So we had this explosion of literacy, people being able to write letters and diaries and accounts, but you also have that same thing with musical literacy. Music was much more for the masses, and not just passed down through the oral tradition.
As far as what we call Parlor Music, a lot of that is readily available. Another avenue would be the music that was printed and distributed to the musicians who were in the army. You also had people going around documenting and recording what musicians were playing. In some cases, it can be very difficult to find just how old this tune is or how new this tune is.
There’s also another avenue, which would be during the Depression. The Works Progress Administration went around to people who were former slaves and said, we need to document what these people have to say about the lives they led before nobody is alive who remembers it at all. They’re what we call the slave narratives.
In some cases, they also had people singing songs that they actually recorded with a tape recorder. They were very, very young when these things were happening. But at least they have primary sources.
Have you noticed any difference in being able to find music from one side or the other?
No, I don’t think there’s any sort of difficulty on one side or the other. There’s plenty available on both sides, or neutral. Just songs that both sides enjoyed, because when it comes down to it, it’s Americans fighting Americans.
As far as picking and choosing, I try to present songs from both sides of the war. Not to express any sort of bias or sentiment towards one side or the other, but to put it in a historical context.
What were these songs typically about?
It could be about anything, because these soldiers were people. They were normal, common people.
Sometimes they’re singing about battles. There was an old song called “The Mockingbird,” where the soldiers repurposed it to be about the siege of Vicksburg, and they’re talking about the parrot shells whistling through the air.
There are a lot of songs about food. I mean, it’s fundamental for existence, right? So why not sing about food? You had songs about the beans that they ate, or about goober peas.
There’s love, like Lorena, a song about a lost love.
I thought about this a lot when the pandemic happened. There was this sentiment that I heard over and over again. It was, “when this is over.” When the pandemic’s over. There was a refrain and a civil war song, “when this cruel war is over, when this war is over,” there’s always this, let’s just get past this. So there was a sentiment that I’ve seen and sort of experienced when we went through this life-changing, traumatic event of the pandemic.
They were looking back or saying, this sucks. We want to look ahead. You know, to win, so all this crap is done.
It was a very hyperbolic time. It was a time when people spoke and wrote very passionately about what they were experiencing. So you see that reflected in a lot of the media and in the books and the literature and, of course, the music. You know, they were wax poetic in a way that we don’t do exactly right now about anything and everything under the sun.
For your lectures and events, do you speak solely about the history of the songs, or do you also include general history?
I’m talking about the history of the song, but in some cases, the song has a story to tell beyond just who wrote it, when it was about and what was happening in the world.
I do a tune called the Spanish Waltz, which you might have heard at West Point. The education for these up-and-coming officers was not just to be an officer. These men were expected to move through the higher echelons of society without embarrassing themselves, their unit and the US Army. They were trained how to eat properly at a formal dinner. How to dance properly.
There might be a problem that you foresee when you have a single sex school. How do you teach the men to dance? Well, half the men have to wear an armband, so they learned the ladies’ part of the dance. And so that’s an interesting way of thinking about what it would have looked like then at the US Military Academy. I use the Spanish Waltz as a way of talking about that. Now I’m going to play the Spanish Waltz, and you can let your imagination run wild.
What is the importance of keeping the music of this time alive?
My first response is, just because it’s good music. I don’t want to see that die on the vine. These songs and these musicians deserve to be remembered in some way.
Another thing is that when we learn about the Civil War in a very immersive environment, like a reenactment, one of the things that helps contribute is hearing the music. That can help transport you back in time, just like going to the symphony and hearing Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony can transport you back to when people were listening to that kind of music.
It’s one thing to read about history. It’s another thing to smell history right at a reenactment, and holy cow, well, you smell history. You can taste history. You can hear history when talking about the music. So that’s my stock and trade, hearing history.
In today’s social media revolution, opportunities have opened for those who are unseen. Small-scale artists can share their work internationally with millions of viewers. A teenager with a hobby for music or a father painting out of his garage could become an internet sensation at any time.
From Alex Warren to Max Alexander, artists are finding their voices and success through social media. Posting one’s art can now lead to a full-time career in creative fields.
In this podcast, Evan Niewoehner and Conner Parker discuss the changing environment of artistic careers. They cover social networks, creative strategy, and monetization, all of which are impacted by social media’s growth.
BLACKSBURG, Va. (Sept. 11, 2025)– Artists Clare Grill and Margaux Ogden converse in front of one of Grill’s paintings. (Zoe Santos, Newsfeed NRV)
Visitors gathered Sept. 12 at the Center for the Arts at Virginia Tech for Beyond the Frame, a monthly tour series that gives audiences a closer look at current exhibitions. September’s tour focused on “Things I Had No Words For”, featuring the paintings of Clare Grill and Margaux Ogden.
Beyond the Frametakes place on the second Thursday of each month at noon. The program invites audiences into the galleries for informal conversations about the art on display. This fall’s exhibitions, which opened Sept. 4 and run through Nov. 22, include Grill and Ogden’s “Things I Had No WordsFor” on the first floor and “Seeing and Reading” featuring Dana Frankfurt and Josephine Halberstam, upstairs.
The exhibition is part of CFA’s rotating series of gallery shows, which change out each semester. Visitors can view the works during regular gallery hours, Tuesday through Friday, 10 a.m.- 5 p.m., and Saturday, 10 a.m.- 4 p.m.
BLACKSBURG, Va. (Sept. 11, 2025)– Margaux Ogden, Clare Grill, and Brian Holcombe discuss one of Ogden’s pieces on display. (Zoe Santos, Newsfeed NRV)
Curated by Brian Holcombe, director of the visual arts program, “Things I Had No Words For” pairs Grill’s contemplative canvases with Ogden’s energetic, color-driven abstractions. Holcombe said he was first introduced to the two artists in 2014 through a mutual friend and immediately saw their work as complementary. “It struck me that they would have a wonderful conversation together,” Holcombe said during the gallery tour.
Clare Grill, lives and works in New York, received her Master’s of Fine Arts from the Pratt Institute in 2005, according to her biography on M + B’s website. She builds her work from a personal archive of images, memories, and textures. Her paintings often incorporate faint outlines and muted tones that evoke a sense of layers of history. She told the group that she begins with fragments from the past, mostly from antique embroidery, and allows them to inspire her to create something new on the canvas.
“I really think of painting as an excavation,” Grill said, “I’m looking for something, and I’m not exactly sure what it’s going to be until I’m there.”
BLACKSBURG, Va. (Sept. 11, 2025)– Artist Margaux Ogden poses for a photo in front of one of her pieces on display titled “Bathers.” (Zoe Santos, Newsfeed NRV)
Ogden, who is based in Brooklyn, uses a very different process. Her works are full of bright colors and geometric shapes, and she paints without sketches or strict plans. She explained that her studio workflow thrives on risk and spontaneity. All of her pieces are seemingly perfectly symmetrical, but she shared with the group that she only measures the first four lines of a painting and then relies on her judgment for the rest. “The way I work is improvised,” Ogden said. “It’s not predetermined. It’s about responding in the moment.” View more of Ogden’s works here.
Holcombe said bringing both artists into the same gallery space emphasizes the contrasts while also showing how abstraction can take multiple forms. “Clare is often working from history, while Margaux is responding to the present moment,” he said. “That tension is what makes this exhibition really exciting.”
The gallery tour drew a mix of students, community members, and regional art enthusiasts. Among them was an older couple who had travelled from Roanoke specifically for the event.
As Holcombe guided visitors through the space, the group moved slowly between large canvases that filled the white-walled gallery. Grill’s pieces provoke close looking, with texture and subtle brushstrokes that reveal themselves the longer you look at the piece. Ogden’s paintings, in contrast, catch viewers’ attention immediately with bright bursts of pink, green, and orange.
Standing in front of one of Ogden’s pieces, Holcombe described the effect of viewing both artists side by side, “There’s an energy in the room when you put these two bodies of work together,” he said. “You start to notice connections you wouldn’t see otherwise.”
Beyond the Frame and “Things I Had No Words For”continues CFA’s mission to showcase contemporary art while engaging both the campus and surrounding communities. Previous exhibitions have included national and international artists, but Holcombe emphasized the importance of highlighting painters like Grill and Ogden, who are contributing to ongoing conversations in abstract art today.
Both artists spoke about the balance between personal meaning and public reception in their work. Grill said she hopes viewers bring their own experiences to her paintings rather than looking for a single interpretation. “I want the work to feel open, like there’s room for the viewer to enter,” she said.
Ogden shared that thought, noting that the intensity of the color often provokes strong reactions. “People might see joy, chaos, or even confusion,” she said. “All of that is valid. It’s about how the painting meets you.”
For visitors, the tour was not only about viewing paintings but also about connecting with artists and ideas. Some lingered after the formal program ended, continuing to talk with Grill and Ogden about their processes. A few students took notes, while others snapped photos to remember specific works.
The CFA hopes that kind of engagement continues throughout the fall. With the exhibition open until Nov. 22, Holcombe encouraged visitors to come back more than once, noting that abstraction often rewards repeat viewings.
“You can walk into this show on different days and notice new things each time,” he said. “That’s the beauty of work that resists easy answers.”
“Clare Grill and Margaux Ogden: Things I Had No Words For”is on display at the Center for the Arts at Virginia Tech through Nov. 22. Admission is free. More information is available on the Center for the Arts at Virginia Tech’s website.
Evan Hughes, Assistant Director of Broadcast Services and Voice of Virginia Tech women’s basketball and baseball, poses for a portrait in Blacksburg, Va.
Even with recent losing seasons, Virginia Tech football continues to draw sold-out crowds to Lane Stadium. The passion is strong as ever, and Hokies, students and alumni alike, say the program represents more than wins and losses.
Evan Hughes, a Virginia Tech alumnus and assistant director of broadcast services for Virginia Tech Athletics, has experienced the culture from both sides of the stands. As a student and now a staff member, Hughes offers a perspective on the influence of Frank Beamer, the game day atmosphere in Lane Stadium, and why Hokie spirit continues to thrive.
(Edited for clarity)
You’ve been both a student and an employee at Virginia Tech. How would you describe what makes the culture here unique?
I think first and foremost, it’s the people, and I think that it’s so overly used when it comes to organizations or universities, “the people, the people, the people,” but truly, there’s a reason why Virginia Tech is near the top every year in student life happiness.
You hardly meet people who come to Virginia Tech who don’t like Virginia Tech. I just think there’s something about the way others treat fellow students and professors that makes this community so special.
I don’t know if it’s the small-town vibe. I don’t know if it’s being in the mountains. But it’s contagious. You can feel it. And there’s a sense of real pride in being a part of something bigger than yourself, too, which is kinda cool.
Every day, there’s one thing that hasn’t changed from when I was a freshman in college to now being an employee. It’s the people.
Frank Beamer was at the South Carolina game recently, supporting his son Shane. What did you think about the fan response to him being there in another team’s colors?
I think it’s a really good question. Obviously, Coach Beamer is arguably the biggest celebrity and one of the most impactful people to ever graduate from Virginia Tech, but then had the biggest impact that one person has had.
The growth of the football team really helped the growth of the university from an academic standpoint. So to see him there supporting Shane, I thought it was cool because he had a Virginia Tech pin. That was so cool, just paying homage like, “Hey, I am a Hokie. I love you guys. This is probably the hardest thing I’ve ever had to do, but of course I’m going to cheer for my son first.”
Just about every Hokie understood that. Nobody’s like, “Hey, why isn’t Coach cheering for the Hokies?” Everybody gets it. It’s his son. Of course, he’s going to cheer for him. That was really unique. I mean, it’s not every day that your legendary coach is going up against his son.
If you could put it into words, what lasting impact did Beamer leave beyond numbers and wins?
When he first got here, from an athletic department standpoint, we were a very small athletic department. We had not achieved a lot from a team perspective. We’d had some good football seasons in the past, but nothing like where we are now in the ACC and from a competitive standpoint.
We are where we are because of Frank Beamer. I think the rise of the football program allowed for so many more people to get on the bandwagon, so to speak, and then students started saying, “Hey, Virginia Tech’s good. Are they good in school? Maybe I should apply there.”
I don’t think you can sum up what he has meant to this place. Even in his retired life, he walks around campus almost every day, and he’s been around for years. In my opinion, Frank Beamer is one of the most impactful people to ever be a Hokie.
I think about Virginia Tech, how many students we can admit every year, how competitive it is, and how we need to expand. All these things. It’s because of him. He is one of the common denominators for why we are the way we are.
I hope he knows that. I hope he feels that from Hokies, because I don’t think he fully understands that he is one of the primary driving forces of why we are where we are as a university and athletic department today.
As a student and now an alumnus, how do you think the experience changed? Does the passion remain the same?
I think the passion absolutely remains the same. As a student, it depends. Some people come in having grown up a Hokie, and they know everything about it. Some come from out of state and don’t know who Frank Beamer is. Everybody has different starting points for when they started following Tech football. But once you’re in, you’re hooked.
As an alum, so many people who love sports follow Tech football because it takes them back to their college days. Tech football is that placeholder in their heart. It’s their way of staying connected to what’s happening with their alma mater.
It is cool how Tech football continues to give to those who have already graduated. That Hokie Stone the players touch running out of the tunnel comes to mind, “For those who have passed, for those to come, reach for excellence.” That’s what it represents.
If you had to sum up a gameday in Lane Stadium to someone who’s never been here, how would you describe it?
Exhilarating. Jumping, a lot of jumping. Coming together with 66,000 of your closest friends to cheer on one common goal, and that is for Virginia Tech to win a football game. You are the 12th man, helping push the team to victory. You’re also sharing in three hours of one of the most special moments you’ll have all week.
From kids who are five to alumni who are 90, people love being Hokies. And there’s no better way to show that than being inside Lane Stadium on a Saturday.
Across the world, Alvin Lucier is composing his latest project at the Art Gallery of Western Australia. But here’s the twist: he died in 2021.
The exhibit is constructed around 20 wall-mounted brass plates with mallets that are periodically struck, sending a ringing vibration throughout the room. What controls these mallets is the recently deceased Alvin Lucier. In the center of the room lives a small enclosure that hosts two white blobs (“brain on a dish”), which send electrical signals to the mallets, creating his newest compositions.
The blobs are cerebral organoids, three-dimensional structures that resemble a developing human brain. They were created using Induced Pluripotent Stem Cell (IPSC) technology. Lucier’s cells were donated before his death in 2021.
Cerebral organoids on a mesh of electrodes (Photo courtesy of media release from the Art Gallery of Western Australia)
The “Revivification” project came to fruition in 2018, when Lucier and an assembled mix of artists and scientists came up with the prospect of generating art after death. The team includes artist Nathan Thompson, Guy Ben-Ary, and Matt Gingold, along with University of Western Australia neuroscientist Stuart Hodgetts.
Lucier, in correspondence with his team, donated his blood for the project in 2020. They reprogrammed the blood cells into stem cells, which are what the “brain on a dish” is composed of, in the middle of the exhibit. The neuronal structure rests on a mesh of electrodes, which corresponds to the mallets that sit behind the brass plates. A statement from the gallery describes the process as generating “complex, sustained resonances that fill the space with sound.”
“Experimentation in the arts is just as vital as it is in the sciences and other fields.”- Ruth Waalkes
Alvin Lucier, pictured here in 2017 in Cambridge, Massachusetts (Photo courtesy of Wikimedia Commons)
Associate Provost for the Arts and Executive Director for Moss Arts Center at Virginia Tech, Ruth Waalkes, is responsible for setting strategic direction and creating programmatic priorities for university-level arts initiatives. She leads the overall development, artistic programming, and operations of Moss Arts Center.
Waalkes noted, “Experimentation in the arts is just as vital as it is in the sciences and other fields. When the arts center was in development, we formulated the concept for what is now the Institute for Creativity, Arts, and Technology (ICAT) as a key element of the overall arts initiative here at Virginia Tech. ICAT has a variety of lab spaces here and supports many different types of projects at the intersections of science, engineering, arts, and design. Some projects are predominantly using art and design methods to explore a research topic, and some utilize technology and scientific data to create works of art. I do see these collaborations continuing to expand here at Virginia Tech through ICAT and other departments on campus.”
In his prolific 90 years of life, Lucier was known for his experimental edge, frequently drawing from the physics of sound in his music. One of his most famous works, “I Am Sitting in a Room,” consisted of him recording himself reading a passage, playing the tape, and re-recording it, and repeating the process until the words became too jumbled to register. He became a pivotal figure in the experimental music scene, revolutionizing the standards of how composition is thought of. His philosophy of composing focused on a shift from the traditional musical elements to experimenting and pushing the boundaries of experimenting with the properties of physical sound.
When asked how “Revivification” challenges the traditional notion of authorship and creativity, Waalkes commented,
“Art-making that crosses the boundaries of technologies and the sciences is a big topic now, particularly with the proliferation of artificial intelligence. Many people are experimenting with these new tools, and it will be very interesting to see what paths both performing and visual artists take. In [this] case, I would say that the creative authors are a collaborative effort – Alvin Lucier who provided the concept, and plus all of [the] others who devised and implemented the installation. However, the final product created needs to resonate with and provoke a response [from] its audience beyond the novelty of the process, I believe, to be considered a ‘successful’ work of art.”
Through his avant-garde work with echolocation, brain waves, and room acoustics, the lines became blurred between music, science, and art. This is what garnered the attention of the artists and researchers at the Art Gallery of Western Australia.
The team’s objective is greater than the act of preservation or paying tribute to a legend; they are, “fundamentally reimagin[ing] artistic immortality by creating a living extension of Lucier’s creative essence,” the team told Forbes.
Still, it would be more accurate to attribute creativity to the “interaction” itself between humans and machines, rather than putting it solely on the robot or technology side…” – Myounghoon Jeon
The installation raises complex ethical and philosophical questions. Not only does this technology allow a lab-grown brain to compose music from the creative mind of a deceased artist, but it also challenges the status quo understanding of creativity, consciousness, and agency.
Myounghoon Jeon, an Industrial and Systems Engineering/ Human-Computer Interaction (HCI) and Human-Robot Interaction (HRI) Professor at Virginia Tech, wrote a survey paper about robotic arts in 2017. AI technology has grown exponentially since then, and so have his thoughts on how the technology can be used.
Jeon remarked, “In the paper, I argued that artists interact with technologies or robots (even though they don’t have consciousness) by receiving feedback and adjusting their interactions accordingly. This goes beyond just “responsiveness” or “reactivity” to something, but we can call it “interactivity”. Still, it would be more accurate to attribute creativity to the “interaction” itself between humans and machines, rather than putting it solely on the robot or technology side, given that human input or “curation” plays a significant role in shaping both the style and meaning-making. At that time, I mentioned that it could still be difficult for machines to make a new “concept” or engage in “meaning-making”. But with recent AI advancements, my thought has evolved more. So, now I can imagine that AI can even make original concepts or artistic directions, which might imply that the interactions with those machines can be more meaningful.
The cells are not done growing either. The team is hoping to learn if they are capable of changing in response to the environment they are housed in. Noise from the gallery viewers is converted into electrical signals and is fed back into the “in vitro brain”. The group is aware of the strangeness this exhibit invites to mind. Part of their mission is to raise the questions of creativity and art: Can it exist outside the human body, and if it can, should it? They are trying to define what the ethical or philosophical guidelines should inform future collaborations between neuroscience, AI, and the arts.
Jeon stated, “Regarding AI and artistic ownership, we should be careful when reusing or building [on] previous or existing work. With large language models (e.g., ChatGPT), it is easy to absorb and reproduce others’ ideas without clear attribution. Knowing where the source comes [from] and acknowledging it would be critical. When working with biological or neurological data (or even posthumous material), ethical collection and consent are crucial (e.g., IRB and consent procedure). In the example here, Lucier himself volunteered for this artwork, so there would be no problem. However, future applications may raise many more complex ethical challenges that we must thoughtfully navigate.
The Revivification Collective uses cross-disciplinary expertise of emerging technologies to initiate a critical public conversation of the blurred lines surrounding modern technology and its place in art culture. We are in a new age— an age of unprecedented biotechnological advancement, empowering thought-provoking and philosophically challenging notions of what constitutes art. Never before has the idea of ‘consciousness’ been as critical in defining what art is.
Jeon observed, “I agree that ‘consciousness’ is critical in creating art. At the same time, many scholars and artists recognize that ‘randomness’ or ‘happenings’ are also key in contemporary art. In the work we’re discussing, there was certainly conscious intent from the creators, researchers, and Lucier. However, the lab-grown brain cells lack consciousness, so there is no ownership or authorship there. Still, they could introduce unpredictable elements into the process (i.e., randomness). I believe that both consciousness and randomness meaningfully contribute to the art piece ultimately.”
Where we go from here is uncertain. The rapid growth of technology and the use of artificial intelligence seem to come straight from an Asimov story, but it is impossible to turn a blind eye to this technology. Discovering the reaches of this technology is the goal of this exhibit, it is meant to raise discomfort, to make us stop and reflect on humanity’s trajectory. After all, that has always been the intention of great art.
Robin Reed, professor of practice in the School of Communication at Virginia Tech, and Tara Williamson, co-owner and operator of Williamson Farms, co-host “The Forgotten Fields Project”, a podcast that explores the stories, struggles and shifting landscapes of local agriculture. This mini-documentary looks at how the podcast began, how its evolving and how it’s helping audiences understand the environmental and human challenges facing farmers today.
Editor’s note: Robin Reed is a Professor of Practice in the Virginia Tech School of Communication. The News Feed NRV is produced by the Virginia Tech School of Communication.
By: Caroline Herbert, Will Frank, and Zain Omar, arts and culture reporters
This podcast discusses the recent “Just Stop Oil” protest in London at a performance of The Tempest. We then discussed the implications and consequences of art based protest and spoke with David Gammons, Assistant Professor of Directing, on his thoughts regarding protesting in the theater.
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