Entangled Musicianship and Minimal Algorithms - An Investigation of Agency in (and through) Algorithmic Interaction

An interdisciplinary group of researchers from electronic music, improvisation, and artificial intelligence will carry out a theoretical and practice-based investigation of a particular kind of performance situation or interaction model in relation to algorithms and artificial agents that we call entangled performance, or more specifically entangled musicianship, where a performer is bound to a co-performing algorithm or agent in a continuous action-reaction pattern over time.

Specifically, we will investigate such interactions with a particular kind of minimal algorithms that are reduced in size and complexity, while still giving rise to surpising complexity in interactive contexts.

We will look at the aesthetic conditions, affordances, and artistic-technical potentials of such performances, with a focus on the concept of human and artificial agency.

The work will be centered around a series of workshops functioning as nodes of experimentation, music-making, knowledgesharing, documentation and evaluation, with topical foci guided by a set of cross-disciplinary subtopics, all connected and partially overlapping.

The results will be presented in concerts, as new theoretical and artistic work, as publications and online documentation. The group is centered around the University of Gothenburg and Chalmers, with added international expertise.

All participants have a firm background in both artistic practice and research, and are all leading practitioners in relevant fields.