Ciauru wins an AI music contest by treating the model as a live visual instrument

Ciauru, the stage name of Italian DJ and producer Simone Privitera, won the second Reply AI Music Contest after performing on the Nova Stage at Kappa FuturFestival in Turin.

His project, “RAW BOTANICAL DATA,” paired a live electronic set with visuals made from original footage. Krea, Seedance and Higgsfield transformed that material into recursive spaces, unstable textures and movement synchronized to the music. The interesting part was not that an AI system produced a finished song: it was that the performer used several models as a responsive visual layer around a human-led set.

Reply says the competition received more than 1,400 applications from 45 countries and selected five finalists for live performances. PARAFRAME & Avis Vox received a separate award for technical experimentation with evolving 3D environments.

The stage is a useful test

Recorded output can hide how much creative work happened before export. A live performance makes the division of labor easier to see: the artist chooses the source material, controls the music, times the transformations and decides what the audience actually experiences.

Ciauru described AI as a way to accelerate a process he still directed. That distinction is more useful than a broad pro- or anti-AI label. The set shows one concrete model for AI in music culture: not an anonymous replacement act, but an instrument whose role is visible in the performance.