WAIVE x MTG

During the third WAIVE Europe showcase, two Barcelona-based artists brought AI, sound design, and local heritage together in an experimental live performance. Taking place at creative venue NIU, the show was led by Błażej Kotowski and Nicholas Evans – both DJs and PhD candidates at the prestigious Music Technology Group (MTG) at Universitat Pompeu Fabra. Their set was a bold fusion of EDM, soundscapes and artistic research, using both WAIVE tools and their own AI-based technologies to transform archive materials into a new kind of music experience. 

 

WAIVE Europe explores how public heritage datasets can be used to build innovative AI-driven tools for musicians and audiovisual artists. In earlier showcases, Mark IJzerman worked primarily with visuals using the WAIVE Visualizer, while Estonian band OOPUS focused on rhythm through the WAIVE Sequencer. In Barcelona, Błażej and Nick primarily used the WAIVE Sampler — while also incorporating their own AI models for a hybrid performance that blurred the boundaries between live music and experimental sound art. 

 

Operating at the intersection of sound, software, and speculative storytelling, Błażej Kotowski  creates generative systems, installations, and performances that examine our evolving relationship with technology. As a PhD candidate at the MTG, he focuses on the architectural design of AI systems. Nicholas Evans is a predoctoral researcher at the Music Technology Group at Universitat Pompeu Fabra. His academic work explores real-time, performance-oriented deep generative systems for symbolic music. He’s also a developer of GrooveTransformer, a generative drum sequencing Eurorack module for electronic musicians and performers. 

 

 

Błażej Kotowski & Nicholas Evans

 

In their performance, the duo combined the WAIVE Sampler packs with the WAIVE Visualizer, feeding the visual tool with historical footage from local archives — including street scenes, traditional festivals, and abstract visuals. But WAIVE wasn’t the only tech on stage. Błażej and Nick also integrated their own AI-based music tools, designed to manipulate and generate audio on stage. 

 

The WAIVE Sampler is built to dig deep into vast audio archives, scanning hours of original recordings for musical potential. The tool is built to identify sounds that could function as musical building blocks — isolating percussive elements like kicks, hi-hats, snares, or claps. These are then transformed into ready-to-use drum samples in any DAW, making it easy for artists to turn historic or everyday sounds into electronic beats.

 

Like previous WAIVE showcases, the Barcelona performance demonstrated the power of open-source technology. While IJzerman hacked the Visualizer, and OOPUS adapted the Sequencer, this performance pointed to how WAIVE can function as part of a broader ecosystem of academic research and creative AI development. 

 

Where earlier shows leaned into visual collage or folkloric rhythm, the Barcelona showcase took a more experimental turn. But the core remained the same: using public archives as creative fuel. Whether through images, field recordings, or ancient instruments, WAIVE continues to prove that heritage doesn’t have to stay in the past — it can shape the future, one beat at a time.

 

WAIVE is an initiative by Thunderboom Records and the Netherlands Institute of Sound & Vision. The VST’s are developed by Superposition and Arran Lyon. WAIVE is funded by Mondriaan Fonds and Stimuleringsfonds Creatieve Industrie.