PRESS
The Center for Collaborative Arts & Media (CCAM) at Yale announces a work-in-progress presentation of the opera I AM ALAN TURING as part of the Fall 2023 Symposium Machine as Medium: Matter and Spirit, November 2 & 3. The opera will show at 7pm on both evenings.
I 'm a Turing machine, Baby
My tape is infinite, Baby
Just like the universe, Baby
I'll go on forever, Baby
— I AM ALAN TURING
I 'm a Turing machine, Baby
My tape is infinite, Baby
Just like the universe, Baby
I'll go on forever, Baby
— I AM ALAN TURING
About I AM ALAN TURING
CCAM presents the showing of I AM ALAN TURING as part of its Fall 2023 Machine as Medium Symposium: Matter and Spirit, which takes up Turing’s legacy through a two-day, interdisciplinary program of events. I AM ALAN TURING is an opera collaboratively devised by artists and artificial intelligence, inspired by the legacy of the gay pioneering computer scientist Alan Turing, who died in 1954 at the age of 41.
For the past three years, New Zealand-born composer Matthew Suttor and an international team of theatermakers and computer programmers have undertaken the ambitious project of conjuring Turing’s voice through various instances of OpenAI’s GPT (Generative Pre-Trained Transformer) trained on Turing’s scientific papers and works he was known to have read in his lifetime. The finely tuned AI-generated text took on an uncanny Turing-esque quality. “I am Alan Turing,” the AI responded on one occasion. “I am here to tell you, you are not alone in the world.”
Exploring the work Turing was doing at the end of his life, the opera's musical composition is deeply influenced by his theoretical biological research on morphogenesis and phyllotaxis. It features a Turing Fibonacci sunflower harmonic progression—a musical revelation that surprisingly unveils an invariant prime chord.
Alan Turing paved the way for the development of modern computers and foresaw the advent of artificial intelligence. He is famous for proposing the “Turing Test” or “imitation game,” a then-hypothetical experiment to test the humanness of thinking machines.
Turing accelerated the Allied Forces' victory with his expertise in cryptanalysis, helping to end World War II and saving untold lives. Yet he faced prosecution in 1952 for “Gross Indecency” and was subjected to chemical castration. Tragically, Turing died by suicide on 7 June 1954, 16 days shy of his 42nd birthday.
CCAM Director Dana Karwas stated, “I am struck by the technological relevance of this project, how it is full of surprises, and how it keeps us asking questions about humans and machines.”
“There would be great opposition from the intellectuals who were afraid of being put out of a job… the intellectuals would be mistaken… There would be plenty to do trying to understand what the machines were trying to say”
– A handwritten edit to “Intelligent Machinery, a Heretical Theory,” a lecture given by Turing to The ’51 Society, BBC Home Service, Manchester
Location: CCAM, 149 York Street, New Haven, CT 06511
Showings: Thursday, November 2 at 7:00 PM and Friday, November 3 at 7:00 PM
CCAM presents the showing of I AM ALAN TURING as part of its Fall 2023 Machine as Medium Symposium: Matter and Spirit, which takes up Turing’s legacy through a two-day, interdisciplinary program of events. I AM ALAN TURING is an opera collaboratively devised by artists and artificial intelligence, inspired by the legacy of the gay pioneering computer scientist Alan Turing, who died in 1954 at the age of 41.
For the past three years, New Zealand-born composer Matthew Suttor and an international team of theatermakers and computer programmers have undertaken the ambitious project of conjuring Turing’s voice through various instances of OpenAI’s GPT (Generative Pre-Trained Transformer) trained on Turing’s scientific papers and works he was known to have read in his lifetime. The finely tuned AI-generated text took on an uncanny Turing-esque quality. “I am Alan Turing,” the AI responded on one occasion. “I am here to tell you, you are not alone in the world.”
Exploring the work Turing was doing at the end of his life, the opera's musical composition is deeply influenced by his theoretical biological research on morphogenesis and phyllotaxis. It features a Turing Fibonacci sunflower harmonic progression—a musical revelation that surprisingly unveils an invariant prime chord.
Alan Turing paved the way for the development of modern computers and foresaw the advent of artificial intelligence. He is famous for proposing the “Turing Test” or “imitation game,” a then-hypothetical experiment to test the humanness of thinking machines.
Turing accelerated the Allied Forces' victory with his expertise in cryptanalysis, helping to end World War II and saving untold lives. Yet he faced prosecution in 1952 for “Gross Indecency” and was subjected to chemical castration. Tragically, Turing died by suicide on 7 June 1954, 16 days shy of his 42nd birthday.
CCAM Director Dana Karwas stated, “I am struck by the technological relevance of this project, how it is full of surprises, and how it keeps us asking questions about humans and machines.”
“There would be great opposition from the intellectuals who were afraid of being put out of a job… the intellectuals would be mistaken… There would be plenty to do trying to understand what the machines were trying to say”
– A handwritten edit to “Intelligent Machinery, a Heretical Theory,” a lecture given by Turing to The ’51 Society, BBC Home Service, Manchester
Location: CCAM, 149 York Street, New Haven, CT 06511
Showings: Thursday, November 2 at 7:00 PM and Friday, November 3 at 7:00 PM
About Matthew Suttor
Matthew Suttor’s research into this question draws on over 20 years’ experience in classrooms and rehearsal rooms at Yale University. He is currently Program Manager at the Center for Collaborative Arts and Media (CCAM) at Yale and Senior Lecturer in Theater and Performance Studies at Yale College. With a background in computer music, Matthew’s opera, theater, and dance works frequently combine electronics with acoustic forces.
For more information about Matthew Suttor, visit www.matthewsuttor.com
For more information about Matthew Suttor, visit www.matthewsuttor.com
About the Team
Liam Bellman-Sharpe, Sola Fadiran, Hugh Farrell, Fred Kennedy, Tyler Kieffer, Madeline Pages, Jean-François Monette, Emily Reilly, Dakota Stipp, and Wladimiro A. Woyno R.
For more information about the I AM ALAN TURING team, visit www.iamalanturing.com
About the Fall 2023 CCAM Machine as Medium Symposium: Matter and Spirit
I AM ALAN TURING is a featured project for Machine as Medium, an ongoing research project at CCAM that questions the role of the machine in creative practice. The I AM ALAN TURING work-in-progress presentation is a featured event of the second-annual CCAM Machine as Medium Symposium, which takes the theme of: Matter and Spirit. As AI enters the mainstream, our lives are increasingly shaped and haunted by Turing. The new reality of the “machine” asks us to confront, in new ways, timeless questions of “matter and spirit.” With newer tools as “medium”—in the sense both of creation and of a means of contact with other realms—what do we stand to lose, and to find? With the Fall 2023 symposium, CCAM takes up Turing’s legacy with a two-day program of interdisciplinary events.
The symposium is free and open to the public. All events will take place at CCAM (149 York Street, New Haven, CT 06511). No advance registration is required. Seating will be first-come, first-served, and room capacity limits will apply.
For more information about Machine as Medium Symposium, visit https://yalemachine.me
About the Center for Collaborative Arts and Media (CCAM) at Yale
The Center for Collaborative Arts and Media (CCAM) at Yale activates creative research and practice across disciplines to advance the cultural landscape of our time. We initiate and support work that adopts and investigates approaches from the arts, architecture, engineering, the sciences, and more. We regularly present our discoveries to the public in dialogue and partnership with the university, New Haven, and the world.
For more information about CCAM, visit https://ccam.yale.edu
Matthew Suttor’s research into this question draws on over 20 years’ experience in classrooms and rehearsal rooms at Yale University. He is currently Program Manager at the Center for Collaborative Arts and Media (CCAM) at Yale and Senior Lecturer in Theater and Performance Studies at Yale College. With a background in computer music, Matthew’s opera, theater, and dance works frequently combine electronics with acoustic forces.
For more information about Matthew Suttor, visit www.matthewsuttor.com
For more information about Matthew Suttor, visit www.matthewsuttor.com
About the Team
Liam Bellman-Sharpe, Sola Fadiran, Hugh Farrell, Fred Kennedy, Tyler Kieffer, Madeline Pages, Jean-François Monette, Emily Reilly, Dakota Stipp, and Wladimiro A. Woyno R.
For more information about the I AM ALAN TURING team, visit www.iamalanturing.com
About the Fall 2023 CCAM Machine as Medium Symposium: Matter and Spirit
I AM ALAN TURING is a featured project for Machine as Medium, an ongoing research project at CCAM that questions the role of the machine in creative practice. The I AM ALAN TURING work-in-progress presentation is a featured event of the second-annual CCAM Machine as Medium Symposium, which takes the theme of: Matter and Spirit. As AI enters the mainstream, our lives are increasingly shaped and haunted by Turing. The new reality of the “machine” asks us to confront, in new ways, timeless questions of “matter and spirit.” With newer tools as “medium”—in the sense both of creation and of a means of contact with other realms—what do we stand to lose, and to find? With the Fall 2023 symposium, CCAM takes up Turing’s legacy with a two-day program of interdisciplinary events.
The symposium is free and open to the public. All events will take place at CCAM (149 York Street, New Haven, CT 06511). No advance registration is required. Seating will be first-come, first-served, and room capacity limits will apply.
For more information about Machine as Medium Symposium, visit https://yalemachine.me
About the Center for Collaborative Arts and Media (CCAM) at Yale
The Center for Collaborative Arts and Media (CCAM) at Yale activates creative research and practice across disciplines to advance the cultural landscape of our time. We initiate and support work that adopts and investigates approaches from the arts, architecture, engineering, the sciences, and more. We regularly present our discoveries to the public in dialogue and partnership with the university, New Haven, and the world.
For more information about CCAM, visit https://ccam.yale.edu