Mariam Gviniashvili • Portrait XO
3D Audio Concert of the swim series / May 20, 2023
Portrait XO
“I wondered whether AI-generated music can be emotional and coherent. In the end, I found it deeply emotional, because hearing a machine sing like me was at the same time eerie, fascinating, and inspiring.” — Portrait XO
Portrait XO (she/they) is a project by producer, singer, and songwriter Rania Kim, exploring collaboration between humans and machines. Compositions from generative algorithms serve as a source of material or a conspiratorial mirror of her own work and self. The AI’s melodies and lyrics are reviewed, completed, and recombined. Alienation and familiarity collide directly in the result: fragmented electronic sounds and glitches merge with catchy pop and soul melodies—sung as a neural duet between Rania Kim and the AI, whose algorithm mimics her voice.
Portrait XO moves at the forefront of new interfaces between technology and art—not only through her award-winning artistic collaboration with AI. Her album WIRE was released at the end of 2022 in NFT-to-vinyl format, as a virtual work that cannot be identically reproduced. With the art and activism collective CO:QUO (CO CREATE STATUS-QUO), Rania Kim also organizes a monthly radio residency on Refuge Worldwide Radio, leads the community and label Sound Obsessed, and co-founded the International Association of Synaesthetes, Artists, and Scientists (IASAS). She lives in Berlin.
Mariam Gviniashvili
In the first half of the concert, Mariam Gviniashvili presents her electroacoustic compositions from the past two years in a seamless, flowing multichannel performance.
The second half features the German premiere of the audiovisual work RUINS, where multichannel composition and visuals merge.
Gviniashvili found inspiration for the piece in the ruins of Soviet buildings in Georgia, whose emotional power and mystical aura both frightened and fascinated her. This memory was intensified by current images of cities destroyed in the ongoing war, which became the decisive impulse for RUINS.
Mariam Gviniashvili grew up in eastern Georgia and now lives in Oslo. She studied composition at the Norwegian Academy of Music and works as a sound artist and composer. Gviniashvili combines electronics, electroacoustics, and 3D sound technology with visual elements, dance, and live performance to deeply explore the physical and emotional essence of sound and space. Her performances have been described as “anxious clouds of feedback and cybernetic sound design, conducted into feverish textures” that sound surreal and teem with life.
Gviniashvili’s works have been presented internationally at prestigious festivals such as Ars Electronica (Austria) and the New York Electroacoustic Music Festival (USA).
RUINS was produced on commission from the Henie Onstad Art Centre, supported by the Norwegian Arts Council.
swim 2023
With the series swim, ZiMMT invites audiences in 2023 to (re)discover their surroundings through the act of listening. Ten concerts and four sound installations offer acoustic experiences that help sharpen our awareness of the environment—either individually or collectively.
Sixteen local and international artists are part of swim. Many of them work with everyday sounds and field recordings, thematically exploring the human-made changes in our acoustic environment during the current era—the Anthropocene. Others focus on psychoacoustic effects. All of them create immersive sound spaces.
Through three-day microresidencies, the artists are given the opportunity to develop their works on-site using 3D audio technology, allowing for new experimental approaches. All concerts are streamed live in high-quality binaural audio—offering a spatial sound experience both on location and worldwide.
