Creativity, Atua, and Digital Technology - a spotlight on Mai Te Uira

“Artificial intelligence is part of our lives and it’s part of how we transition between living in the now, here, and how we can go into the digital world and live there too,” says musician, producer and activist Tiki Taane (Ngāti Maniapoto).

Artificial intelligence (AI) technology – and how humans interact with it – is one of the topics the upcoming CMNZ Series, Mai Te Uira, explores.

“First and foremost, [my] intent was to contribute something to te Ao Māori that I think has meaning; something that has a spiritual function for those that occupy space within the digital realm, that connects to our past in the present – something a little more than just an artwork,” writes multi-disciplinary artist Kereama Taepa (Te Arawa, Te Āti Awa), who created the karakia on which the performance is based.

It was a way to connect digital creatives with te Ao Māori and ancestral traditions. Kereama also created the animated digital art that Tiki responds to on stage with live loops and improvisations, taking into account the audience’s energy.

Recent digital innovations like ChatGPT has ignited debate about how these technologies are affecting human creativity.

“I learned all my music and how to do what I do before the internet,” says Tiki, “so for me, it’s always going to be embedded in me to do things organically, and then I introduce AI to what I’m doing to see what happens.”

He’s open to, and optimistic about, the possibilities that AI could bring to music in the future.

“No one has a crystal ball. It’s going to [be] a whole new bizarre world in the next 50 to 100 years, and we’re just only at the tip of it,” he says. “It’s exciting for me as a Māori artist to explore the influence that AI has on indigenous cultures.”

He imagines, in the future, these technologies might change how we experience music, perhaps creating new scales or making it multi-sensory – although, at the end of the day, it’s important that humans remain the ones making and creating art.

Mai Te Uira is an exploration of what navigating this new digital landscape could mean for us in our own lives, and in the lives of new generations who were born into it.

“Everybody should be able to watch this and take something away,” says Tiki. “And it should be unique to you and where you are in the scheme of technology and things like that.

“It’s interesting for me because, as Māori, a lot of us creatives are using the digital realm every day.

“I love the idea of having a karakia that we can use when we interface with digital technology. It makes it feel more like there’s mauri (life force) and energy, and more alive for us when we can conceptualise that.”

He compares it to how traditional carvers and sculptors would use chisels, paralleling how artists are using software and plugins to do similar things in the digital space. The karakia creates a sense of connection between the traditional and the modern.

After two successful tours in the North Island, Mai Te Uira is coming to Te Waipounamu for the first time. It’s also the first time a CMNZ Series tour has gone to Hokitika and Westport, which Tiki is very excited about.

“I’m normally playing at festivals and I’m playing it loud. Thousands of people are jumping up and down and going crazy. Playing these theatre styles for me is really exciting because I get to really slow things down and go deeper and unpack whatever is going on in the room at that time.”

He hopes Mai Te Uira will “prompt and inspire that conversation about where AI sits within your life and your world, and also, most importantly, within your tamariki, because they are inherently going to take on all this stuff, and they have already.”