Creative Dialectics: Playing with Intelligent Instruments

Thor Magnusson

The symposium takes place on Friday 15th and Saturday 16th of December. See the conference progrmamme here.

Abstract

Intelligent instruments are a result of how contemporary AI technologies are becoming integral components of our musical ecosystems. The application of creative AI can range from automatic music creation to the embedding of intelligent algorithms in the instrument itself. In this talk I will compare the Socratic elenctics, a philosophical method of inquiry, with the way we engage with modern creative AI systems. Based on experience in practice-based research on creative AI systems, I will present a new mode of exploration and enquiry that emerges when we encounter an intelligent instrument and begin to discover their ergodynamics. The HCI notion of interactivity moves aside for autonomy and a stronger perception of agentical relations through dialogue, probing, curiosity, surprise, alterity and collaboration. When our musical instrument becomes an interlocutor with a strong agency our interaction shifts more to that of prediction, expectation, and confirmation, resulting in a heightened improvisational approaches.

Panel 5

Thor will also participate in a panel with Anna Xambó and Federico Visi.

The panel discusses how Artificial Intelligence can offer novel possibilities for music performance. The panel examines the utilization of algorithms as co-performers and machine learning as a means of enhancing the interface between human bodies and sound production. Furthermore, the panel considers how machine learning itself can become a central element of performance and how bodies of data can be made performatively perceptible. It gathers viewpoints aimed at understanding the impact of creative AI on our interactions with technology, social dynamics, and knowledge creation.