THE FLAMING LIPS AT I/O
The Flaming Lips perform a one-of-a-kind song with the help of a bowl of fruit, AI, and the crowd at Google I/O.
As headliners of the concert at Google I/O 2019, The Flaming Lips wanted to grow their reputation as one of the most innovative bands in music by incorporating AI into their performance. Together with Google’s Magenta team, we introduced them to Piano Genie, a software developed by Magenta engineers that uses machine learning to compose music.
During a brainstorm, one of our engineers put together a bowl of fruit that acted as buttons to trigger the MIDI interface of Piano Genie. The result was Fruit Genie: an AI-powered musical instrument that combines Magenta’s model with a physical interface of fruit. The Lips used Piano Genie to compose a new song for the I/O performance. To get the audience involved, we created giant inflatables filled with sensors that signaled the software when touched, adding notes to the song. And that’s how The Flaming Lips, a bowl of fruit, Google, and the audience at I/O played a song like no other.
FRUIT GENIE
A MACHINE LEARNING POWERED
MUSICAL FRUIT BOWL
CUSTOM INFLATABLE
FRUIT BALLOONS
ALLOWED THE AUDIENCE TO
PLAY NOTES OF THE SONG
“There is a joyous high that I get when I am working with intense, genius functioning artists [at] visionary freak marketing firm Deeplocal. Deeplocal’s intense, fresh, creative environment has allowed me, as Experience Designer, to see a new world as a DIY artist.”
—Wayne Coyne, The Flaming Lips
The instructions to create your own Fruit Genie are open sourced on Github, so innovative musicians everywhere can create their own.
Led to creative partnership with Flaming Lips frontman Wayne Coyne, who works on special projects as an Experience Designer at Deeplocal.