Freddie reviews Art and Poetry with Jay Bernard and Hannah Silva

On Saturday, July 6th, I had the privilege of attending "Art and Poetry: Jay Bernard and Hannah Silva" at the Ledbury Poetry Festival.

Jay Bernard and Hannah Silva, both renowned interdisciplinary writers, showcased innovation in their performances.

Jay Bernard is a numerous-award-winning writer and artist from London, prominently named as Sunday Times Young Writer of the Year in 2020 for their debut collection “Surge”. As an archivist, filmmaker and author, Bernard’s work dissects the experiences of marginalised communities woven in the roots of contemporary urban life. Their recent multimedia works include “Crystals of this Social Substance”, a 2021 Sound Gallery piece about the impact of capitalism on young South Londoners; “Complicity”, a pamphlet about colonial memory in the urban environment based on the collection at the Tate; and “The Last 7 Years”, a digital and live sound piece produced by Art Angel.

Hannah Silva is a pioneer in creating sound-based artwork, with expertise in writing for radio and performance poetry. Silva has worked artistically with audio technology for two decades, writing eight plays for BBC Radio 3 and 4, including ‘An Artificially Intelligent Guide to Love’, which served as the foundation for her 2023 book “My Child, the Algorithm".

Guest curator and Forward Prize-winning poet Will Harris launched this exciting event to a bustling Burgage Hall in Ledbury, as well as to international viewers via livestream.

Jay Bernard was the first poet to read. They performed a series of powerful poems based on the themes of family and ancestry. The poems were solemn in theme and explored the impact of class on generational trauma and the complexities of familial tragedy and disintegration. They concluded with a piece about Turkish food and bittersweet family gatherings, examining the role reversal of children and their parents and the weight carried by those who grieve their parents after years of caregiving.

Bernard’s words were delicately crafted. They wrote skilfully with compassion and introspection. The intergenerational audience were clearly both moved and engaged throughout.

Harris then introduced Hannah Silva, a multi-format writer and performer, who recited segments of her radio play-adapted memoir, "My Child, the Algorithm."

The work explores early AI-informed language generation models. Silva began by introducing the voice of the machine. She then initiated a series of conversations with the AI where she challenged it to answer emotionally-weighted questions about queer love and heartbreak.

The performance took a surreal turn as Silva integrated live recording equipment to echo harmonies, AI-generated phrases, and machine faults to form a haunting soundscape. The reverberations formed a ghostly collage of vocalized computer glitches and deconstructed sentiments about unreciprocated love.

This thought-provoking performance was followed by a panel chaired by Harris, who interviewed the poets about the psychology of AI language models and their implications for human writers.

Audience members were invited to ask Silva and Bernard questions, all of which were met with thoughtful and engaging insights about the ethical dilemmas of inorganic creativity: Is machine-built poetry a revolutionary tool for human writers or a route to the devaluation of artwork? Can a poem generated by a language model even be considered poetry?

I found the topic of the physiology of machines particularly interesting: water, energy, and manual human labour are essential to maintain servers—perhaps computers are more organic and human than the term "artificial intelligence" implies?

During the Q and A Silva also provided fascinating insights into the developments in Virtual Reality (VR) entertainment as a heightened storytelling experience, namely designing detailed visuals and user-prompted sound effects to place the user in a re-imagined historic event or disaster.

Both artists, well-versed in the VR industry, then discussed the rapid desensitization of consumers. Using the example of a deep-sea diving accident, where users can directly influence the severity of the tragedy experienced on screen, Bernard asked what happens next? Now that we have mastered simulating pain, suffering, and war – without the consequences – for the sake of entertainment with VR and video games – how close can we get to replicating reality before reality itself is no longer intense enough to immerse us?

Their compelling conversation about simulations and expectations and the potential for negative consequences provided ample food for thought.

"Art and Poetry: Jay Bernard and Hannah Silva" was an intensely intellectual investigation of the ever-present developments in literary art and how modern society values it. The room was united by feelings of curiosity and awe.