Esmeralda Conde Ruiz is an award-winning Spanish audiovisual artist based in London. Her work often explores themes of language, individuality versus collectivity, and the impact of technology on society. Specialising in vocal compositions, she creates large-scale choral works that blend human voices with field recordings of overlooked, everyday man-made sounds.
Recent projects by Conde Ruiz have addressed the ethics of artificial intelligence and data storage, using sound and visuals to highlight the hidden dimensions of our digital lives. These works often feature multi-generational singers and are presented through exhibitions and performances.
In 2023, Conde Ruiz was an artist-in-residence at the Schaufler Lab at TU Dresden, where she collaborated with PhD students and researchers to examine the societal impact of artificial intelligence. Her workshops brought together academics from IT, social sciences, communication and media studies, sociology, and 3D design. The residency culminated in Big Data (2023), a site-specific performance at HELLERAU, European Centre for the Arts, Dresden. Featuring a children’s chorus, a countertenor, and 120 singers, the performance explored generational responses to data sharing and the obscurity of data destinations after accepting online terms and conditions.
In January 2024, Conde Ruiz was invited to speak at Ether’s Bloom: A Programme on Artificial Intelligence at Gropius Bau on “Speculation and Symbiosis.” Her latest public artwork, Paint The Town Red, opened at Burghof Lörrach in July 2024. This 16-channel sound installation on painted glass featured a new vocal composition created with over 150 AI generated neural voices from public translation sites like Google Translate and DeepL. The piece questions our relationship with online translation, exploring notions of authenticity, accuracy, and the consequences when AI lacks cultural context in language translation.
Collaboration is central to Conde Ruiz’s practice. She has worked with notable artists and musicians such as Yoko Ono, Olafur Eliasson, Nick Cave, Peter Liversidge, Susan Philipsz, Matthew Herbert, Lina Lapelyte, and Mira Calix.
Founded in 2013 by Esmeralda, the E Ensemble is an international group of over 40 singers. The group works in a project-based way both online and in person. Operating as a nomadic lab the E Ensemble focuses on experimentation and pushing the parameters of the human voice. The E Ensemble works without a traditional conductor and is led instead by workshop development, innovation and improvisation.
The E Ensemble are: Renata Adamcova (UK), Vicky Annand (UK), Alison Buckley (UK), Madeleine Buckley (UK), Nick Buckley (UK), Christiane (Germany), Christoph Braun (Germany), Emily Charles (UK), Martin Colley (UK), Belén Duran (UK), David Francis (UK), Alison Furnham (UK), Juliane Gaebler (Germany), Allan Gardam (UK), Elaine Gibson Bolton (UK), Noriko Gregory (UK), William Hammonds (UK), Valerie Hazan (UK), Jane Higginbottom (UK), Monica Hossain (UK), Kemi Ijaolo (UK), , Clare Korner (UK), Claudia Kramer (Germany), Hanka Katherina Kunert (Germany), Janice Lyayuka (Kenya), Candis Litsey (USA), Janie Lucchese (UK), Neresa May (UK), Henry Milton (UK), Alison Monaghan (UK), Javier Navarro (UK), Ruby Nightingale Castillo (USA), Pedro Portellano (Spain), Ștefan Rager (Germany), Alice Roberts (UK), Lara Roussel (UK), Ulrike Siemann (Canary Islands), Natalie Sontopski (Germany), Kemi Sulola (UK), Tina Vifor (UK), Walney Virgilio (UK), Jackie Vitale (USA), Anne White (UK)
Esmeralda Conde Ruiz Studios is a creative studio, opened in 2021 and based in the UK. The studio works to develop, produce, perform and create artworks, projects, and exhibitions. The Studio works collaboratively with freelance musicians, sound and lighting engineers, choirs and researchers from around the globe to produce site specific artworks at the intersection of art and music.
The main practice focuses on the research and development of the human voice and exploring the connections between what we hear and what we see or visualise.
The studio team consists of Esmeralda Conde Ruiz (Director and Founder) and Eira Szadurski (Creative Producer/Studio Manager).