14 DAY TRIAL // Computers aren't generally the most emotionally sensible things one can find on Earth, however, you can't deny them the right of, at least, trying to be.
Combine computer "emotions" and ‘90s ballads from Whitney Houston and Celine Dion, and you could suddenly feel raw binary codes turn into flesh and bones. "What do machines sing of?" is an art project by Martin Backes that has computers endlessly sing number-one ballads from the 1990s.
The whole project is completely void of any love, or feeling. It's just a software system that tries to apply human sentiments to the sounds that the computer sings, and suggests that the "behaviour of the device seems to reflect a desire, on the part of the machine, to become sophisticated enough to have its very own personality.”
Feel like it's 1999
Although it's more of a simple pitch regulating software and a stylish, retro display animation, the sounds emanated by the said computer are indeed digitally emotional enough to give the impression of a machine that suddenly grows a soul on ‘90s songs.
Yes, the ‘90s were pretty emotional, but to actually make computers sentient and have them feel emotions on the soundtrack of the Titanic ushers a new era of excruciating schadenfreude. This is indeed a quite successful artistic experience from Martin Backers who developed this project together with the University of Arts in Berlin and with the help of SuperCollider programming language.