AI Music and Cybernetics

11 Nov 2024

Dr Stephen Roddy of the Department of Digital Humanities and the Radical Humanities Laboratory and Dr Brian Bridges of Ulster University, recently presented a talk entitled 'Cybernetic Resurgences: Human-machine Co-creation in the Age of Artificial Media' for the Artificial Media panel at the 2024 Ubiquitous Music Symposium (UBIMUS 2024) at University of Saint Joseph, Macao.

The talk examined the resurgence of cybernetic theories and practices as a reaction to the rapid proliferation of generative AI techniques in music production and performance over the past decade. The research presented stems from their broader project exploring how cybernetics and music have shaped one another. Next week Stephen is presenting the most recent phase of this work for the Intangible Modalities Symposium at CePRA (Centre for Practice Research in the Arts) in Leeds University. This talk will contextualise the critical application of machine learning (ML) tools in musical experiments by DEBIT, Nao Tokui, and Hexorcismos, with reference to recent work by N. Katherine Hayles and Yuk Hui. This critical application of AI/ML in music is explored as a counterpoint to the mass proliferation of AI-generated slop driven by the Big Tech hegemony.