PeopleofSuperintelligence

Public voice

Holly Herndon

Holly Herndon is an artist and composer whose work has brought machine learning into music through custom models and installations. She left her Johnson City, Tennessee home for Berlin as a teenager, studied electronic music at Mills College, won a composer award in 2011, and released her debut album Movement in 2012. Her AI work included Spawn, an AI vocal model featured on PROTO in 2019, and Holly+, a real-time voice model developed around 2021. She co-founded Spawning in 2022, presented xhairymutantx at the 2024 Whitney Biennial and The Call at Serpentine from October 2024 to February 2025, and received the KAIROS Prize and the German AI Award's first AI Honorary Award in 2025. As of October 2026, she is a composer and artist whose studio builds machine-learning systems as a form of musical practice.

Now at
Spawning

Timeline

  1. By 2012

    Berlin, Mills, and Movement

    She leaves her Johnson City, Tennessee home for Berlin as a teenager and studies for a master's in electronic music at Mills College. She wins the Elizabeth Mills Crothers award for best composer in 2011 and releases her debut album Movement in 2012.

  2. 2015

    Machine learning experiments

    She begins experimenting with machine learning in 2015; those experiments develop into custom models that let anyone perform as her.

  3. 2019

    Spawn joins PROTO

    Her 2019 album PROTO features Spawn, an AI vocal model trained through live community sessions to explore collective singing with machine learning.

  4. 2021

    Holly+ voice model

    Around 2021, she and Voctro Labs develop Holly+, a real-time voice model that lets people sing using her voice.

  5. 2022

    Spawning and consent tools

    She co-founds Spawning in 2022, an organization building a consent layer for AI with tools such as haveibeentrained.com and the Do Not Train protocol. The protocol covers more than two billion works.

  6. 2024–2025

    xhairymutantx and The Call

    At the 2024 Whitney Biennial, she and Mat Dryhurst present xhairymutantx, a text-to-image AI model trained on images of Herndon altered through costuming. At Serpentine, The Call lets visitors sing to generate sacred choral music with deep learning; it runs from October 2024 to February 2025.

  7. 2025

    KAIROS and AI awards

    In 2025, she and Mat Dryhurst receive the KAIROS Prize. She also receives the first AI Honorary Award, presented with the German AI Award, for her contributions to AI music in 2025.

  8. As of October 2026

    Composer and artist

    In October 2026, she is a composer and artist whose studio builds machine-learning systems as a form of musical practice.

Sources and credits

Photo: We have no published photo of Holly Herndon yet. Send us a free-licensed photo.

  1. Movement | Holly Herndon hollyherndon.bandcamp.com. Checked 14 October 2026.
  2. Experimental composer Holly Herndon built an AI voice clone that anyone can use | Scientific American scientificamerican.com. Checked 14 October 2026.
  3. Holly Herndon & Mat Dryhurst Starmirror - Exhibitions - KW Institute for Contemporary Art kw-berlin.de. Checked 14 October 2026.
  4. BSO | Holly Herndon bso.org. Checked 14 October 2026.
  5. Holly Herndon and Mat Dryhurst: xhairymutantx | Whitney Museum of American Art whitney.org. Checked 14 October 2026.
  6. The Call by Holly Herndon & Mat Dryhurst – Towards an Ethical and Open-Sourced AI 1/2 | Ircam www-prod.ircam.fr. Checked 14 October 2026.
  7. KAIROS Prize | Alfred Toepfer Stiftung F.V.S. toepfer-stiftung.de. Checked 14 October 2026.
  8. WELT honors pioneers of artificial intelligence with the German AI Award - Axel Springer SE axelspringer.com. Checked 14 October 2026.
  9. BSO | Holly Herndon: AI as Musical Practice bso.org. Checked 14 October 2026.