A Medieval Choir of Human Voice and AI: Holly Herndon & Mat Dryhurst and “Starmirror” at Düsseldorf K21

If cold lines of code or data centers spring to mind when you think of artificial intelligence, get ready to refresh your perspective in Holly Herndon and Mat Dryhurst’s sonic world that places the human voice at its center. Known for their pioneering work in art, music, machine learning, and collaborative production practices, the duo transforms the space of K21 Kunstsammlung Nordrhein-Westfalen in Düsseldorf into a massive sound laboratory with their exhibition titled “Starmirror.”

Taking place within a specialized acoustic layout designed by the architecture studio sub, the project—which began on June 27 and runs until October 11, 2026—invites visitors to be not just passive listeners, but a founding element of a collective AI choir. In the sound recording area created inside the gallery, visitors record their voices alongside local choirs and professional vocal ensembles, generating a shared digital dataset.

The backbone of this experimental process is formed by the work Ordo virtutum by the 12th-century mystical thinker and composer, Benedictine nun Hildegard von Bingen. Centered around the existential choice human beings make between good and evil, this historical liederbuch is reinterpreted with 21st-century artificial intelligence technologies.

Conceived in collaboration with the Berlin KW Institute for Contemporary Art and supported by the German Federal Cultural Foundation (Kulturstiftung des Bundes), Starmirror treats artificial intelligence not as an abstract mechanism replacing humans, but as a participatory process shaped by collective human labor. Questioning how algorithms and invisible protocols transform the world, this installation offers a spellbinding sonic experience that voices medieval mysticism and tomorrow’s technologies under the very same roof.