Imago: ethical AI music player by Central Saint Martins graduates

Central Saint Martins graduates Domenico di Paolo and Kieran Feechan have created Imago, a listening device that critiques AI in music. Resembling a crystalline record player, it features a circular touchscreen with three glowing dots that listeners slide to modify a composition in real time. The device uses a personalized machine learning model developed with IRCAM, attached to the Centre Pompidou. Artists create their own audio datasets—no scraped data is used—and all processing occurs offline on the device. Datasets are housed on NFC-equipped metal pucks placed in a slot to start the music. Four artists contributed datasets, including French producers Canblaster and Molécule (synthesiser recordings) and British composer Robert Laidlow (1940s BBC Philharmonic Orchestra recordings). The model disentangles timbre from structure, allowing listeners to explore the model's latent space. Compositions cannot be recorded or repeated. Feechan and di Paolo aim to give musicians sovereignty over technology, contrasting with commercial AI systems that scrape data without consent. Imago was created for their graduate degree in industrial design at Central Saint Martins.