"[F****d] Digital Labour - Avoiding Algorithmic Death One" by Cibelle Cavalli Bastos examines how platform capitalism intensifies algorithmic behaviour, leading to emotional extractivism and cycles of unpaid labour driven by the fear of losing social connections and job opportunities. From a non-binary feminist perspective, Bastos critiques the social and emotional toll of 'techno-capital-feudalism,' where engagement algorithms foster oppression by inducing exhaustion and fear, resulting in reactive 'algorithmic behaviors' that perpetuate biased social conditioning. These behaviours contribute to violence and societal decay, manifesting in the rise of the far right, overconsumption, resource over-extraction, and climate collapse, all for the profit of a select few. The piece underscores the exacerbation of mental health crises and labour inequalities, advocating for conscious digital engagement, protective legislation, decentralized social media platforms, and fair compensation for unpaid and emotionally coerced "social media labour," particularly in the involuntary training of large language models.
As part of the Sound Obsessed exhibition at SONAR+D 2024, this installation utilizes data sonification to create immersive soundscapes from SDG statistics. The piece, crafted with AI tools and Noah Pred’s data sonification tools on Ableton 11, features samples from Cibelle’s text on algorithmic behaviour, transformed into an orchestral overture on Udio. Stems were extracted using Moises AI and Fadr, with the final arrangement mastered on LANDR, an AI mastering platform.

Å//Ä//Ā_Islas de Tiempo_ is an audiovisual series that delves into critical data of the Balearic Islands, merging the fields of abstract coding, environmental science and data sonification. Presented at Sónar+D Music Festival, these three pieces highlight different approaches to analyzing and interpreting environmental changes, particularly in and around the Bay of San Antonio, Ibiza. By utilizing critical data on marine pollution by microplastics and the warming of marine ecosystems, this series are the first of a bigger collection of works about environmental challenges faced by these islands.

World Temperature Anomalies 1940-2024 data sonified and visualized by Portrait XO.

This is the sound of a synth modulated by world temperature anomalies from 1940-2024. The sonic translation of the exponential curve from 2000-2024 aligns with the latest AI summer we're currently living in. As AI continues its rapid growth, humans must continue to stay alert with critical analysis of how AI impacts us individually, societally, collectively, economically, and environmentally. From data privacy, transparency, and protection, to how AI impacts our wellbeing and the health of the entire planet with all living species, it's our duty as humans to look after ourselves and the home we inhabit. Seeing the correlation between the impact of AI and climate change, we need to question how and why it makes sense to support such rapid growth, and how we can push for sustainable solutions.

Part of TEMPORAL TIDE at Sónar Festival 2024:
Temporal Tide installation translates critical data into audiovisual narratives, spotlighting the complexities and interconnections of global challenges. Aimed at fostering dialogue, it calls for awareness, reflection, and collective action toward a sustainable future.

Portrait XO & Ali M. Demirel 'Codes of Nature' - USA. An excerpt from the audiovisual performance of World Temperature Anomalies 1940-2024 premiered at Nobel Prize Museum 12th April, 2024.

As Nobel Prize Laureate Sir Paul Nurse stated over 10 years ago, climate change is a real human-caused problem. Evidence and causes have been documented by leading climate scientists published by The Royal Society and the US National Academy of Sciences over a decade ago. If proof exists that continues to go unseen, how much longer will Earth keep humans as we continue to cause so much damage at exponential speed? The data of USA temperature anomalies have been sonified to feel data and continue to build awareness and call to action for changemakers, policymakers, and rest of humanity to understand the urgency of our current climate crisis.

Part of TEMPORAL TIDE at Sónar Festival 2024:
Temporal Tide installation translates critical data into audiovisual narratives, spotlighting the complexities and interconnections of global challenges. Aimed at fostering dialogue, it calls for awareness, reflection, and collective action toward a sustainable future.

We imagine a world where humans, nature, and technology are unified in the process of healing and advancing each other. The generative story travels between humans of different cultural backgrounds, in different natural environments, where together they can communicate and connect on deep levels, using these new and natural technologies. 

We use poetry and the sonification of imaginative imagery of these futures to tell this story of a positive future, in hopes of igniting your own intention and imagination towards building it with us in community.

Vertiginous Trends - rTchAd x Levy Lima

"Vertiginous Trends" explores the pronounced Urbanization on the last decades, highlighting the ensuing challenges that cities face in providing a good quality of life. As urban populations swell, many cities struggle with inadequate infrastructure, leading to the proliferation of slums, rising violence, and escalating mental and health issues.

This piece delves into the darker aspects of urbanization, emphasizing the severe impact on residents' well-being. Through a compelling blend of visuals and sound, it raises critical questions
What kind of environment do we envision for ourselves and future generations?
How can we create new spaces and enhance existing ones to foster better living conditions?
In the production process, we utilized data sonification tools and AI technologies to transform complex urban data into an immersive audio-visual experience. "Vertiginous Trends" prompts viewers to reflect on these urgent urban issues and consider actionable solutions for building more sustainable, equitable cities.

Some say climate change is the biggest threat of our age while others say it’s a myth based on dodgy science.

Exploring global temperatures since 1750 is a long-time study of climate trends contemplating our relationship with technology and nature. It is also an invitation to reflect artistic process as a way of knowing. Experiences and the consequences of one's inquiries in action can generate profound new feelings and awarenesses.

We created an experiment in data sonification and visualization that explores climate data collected between 1750 and 2013. In both video and audio we focus on the technology of measuring instruments. The Berkeley Earth Surface Temperature Study combines 1.6 billion temperature reports from 16 pre-existing archives. We sonified a long-time study of climate trends based on earth surface temperature data for the city of Berlin.

Early data was collected by technicians using mercury thermometers, where any variation in the visit time impacted measurements. In the 1940s, the construction of airports caused many weather stations to be moved. In the 1980s, there was a move to electronic thermometers that are said to have a cooling bias. Today there is a broad range of organizations that collate climate trends data. The three most cited land and ocean temperature data sets are NOAA’s MLOST, NASA’s GISTEMP and the UK’s HadCrut.

For our study we processed Earth Surface Temperature Data for several cities with digital signal processing (DSP) methods and made the results audible using modular sound synthesis.

We want to credit Berkeley Earth, which is affiliated with Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory for providing the dataset and Kristen Sissener (Editor) from the Kaggle Team for repackaging the data to make slicing into interesting subsets (for example by country) possible.

Sonified data that translates each frequency and rhythm percentage according to legislation status of the right to change legal gender (2023). This is the legal recognition of sex reassignment by permitting a change of legal gender on an individual's birth certificate. As of 2023, many countries still do not recognize a third gender, reflecting varying levels of acceptance and understanding of non-binary and gender-diverse identities. In these countries, legal documents such as passports and national IDs typically only offer male and female gender options, excluding non-binary individuals. This lack of recognition can lead to challenges in accessing services, legal protections, and social acceptance. Countries without third gender recognition include much of the Middle East, parts of Africa, and several nations in Asia and Europe. Conversely, more countries are recognizing a third gender, showing growing acceptance of non-binary identities. In India, over 5 million people identify as hijra and other non-binary genders. Germany's "diverse" gender marker, introduced in 2019, is increasingly used, with thousands opting for it. In the United States, around 1.5 million adults now identify as non-binary. Argentina's non-binary ID option, added in 2021, has been utilized by thousands. Countries like Australia, Canada, and Nepal also report rising numbers of people registering under third gender categories. This legal recognition is vital for the rights and acceptance of non-binary individuals.

"4 out of 10" - rTchAd x PortraitXO - is an audiovisual piece derived from data on global undernourishment and food insecurity. The persistent issue of hunger, although less frequently featured in the news, continues to cause immense suffering for an uncountable number of people worldwide. Despite living in an age of interconnectedness and globalization, where the struggles of others are more visible than ever, the plight of those facing food insecurity often remains overlooked.
Significant progress has been made in recent years, yet the challenge remains daunting. Recent conflicts and global warming have exacerbated food insecurity, disrupting supply chains, displacing communities, and affecting agricultural productivity, thereby increasing the number of people suffering from hunger. This piece serves as a poignant reminder of our collective responsibility to care for one another. It emphasizes that, as a global community, we must not become complacent but rather strive to ensure that every human has access to basic needs, with access to food being one of the most fundamental, second only to access to clean water. This artwork is not just a reflection of data but a call to action for empathy, awareness, and global solidarity in addressing and eradicating hunger.
The pieces have been created using A.I. and data sonification tools, blending technology and art to transform stark statistics into an evocative auditory and visual experience. Through this innovative approach, "4 out of 10" seeks to humanize the data and deepen our understanding of the critical issue of hunger.

gavcloud - Building The Entopia, 2024, color video with sound, 90 seconds

Entopia is a concept coined by the Greek architect and urban planner Constantinos Apostolou Doxiadis. As he states, "What human beings need is not utopia ('no place') but entopia ('in place') a real city which they can build, a place which satisfies the dreamer and is acceptable to the scientist, a place where the projections of the artist and the builder merge." Building The Entopia derives both its rhythmic and melodic information from datasets compiled by the World Bank representing basic research, applied research, and experimental research spending globally from 1996-2001. The pitch information is scaled to an Erv Wilson microtonal tuning. The video features original footage filmed on-location in São Paulo Brazil, Tokyo Japan, and the Kumbh Mela India.

Data source: Multiple sources compiled by World Bank

gavcloud - Tertiary Education Expenditures, 2024, color video with sound, 90 seconds

Tertiary Education Expenditures is a 90-second audio/visual piece that uses data sonification as its principal process. Utilizing UNESCO Institute of Statistics data for number of people of any age group who are enrolled in tertiary education expressed as a percentage of the total population from 1970-2022, TEE creates linear isomrophic mappings between musical pitch and alphabetically ordered countries and their respective data-points, each pitch representing a single year's percentage of enrollment. Rhythmical variety is established when the percentage of enrollment is very low, which causes rhythmic 'rests' in the melody to occur below a certain threshold. The pitch information is scaled to the Euler microtonal tuning.

Data source: UNESCO via World Bank
World Bank variable id: SE.TER.ENRR
Original source: UNESCO Institute for Statistics

SOUND ON.

Sonified global wealth gaps provide an abrasive soundtrack to AI-generated solutions to poverty that keep getting increasingly more radical.

Sonifying data sets extracted from widening global income gaps using custom tools developed by the artist, Basic Needs Guaranteed enlists an LLM to generate a series of increasingly radical solutions to poverty. Utilizing predictive text as an unrepentant mirror, the steadily intensifying soundtrack reflects the urgency of growing inequality. A building chorus of RAVE-encoded murmurs tracing the contours of wealth ratios gives voice to the those living below acceptable thresholds. The piece aims to expose poverty's persistence as a Gordian knot at the twisted heart of a tangled web of systemic issues. Expressed with familiar typefaces, the generated sloganeering makes a self-aware nod to propaganda, raising the question: why do fundamental necessities seem beyond reach in our current era of techno-capitalist excess?

50% of proceeds automatically go to: savethechildren.org

Data sourced from: ourworldindata.org/poverty#explore-data-on-poverty (Joe Hasell, Max Roser, Esteban Ortiz-Ospina, and Pablo Arriagada)