Technology, Creativity, and the Social in Algorithmic Music

Abstract

This chapter surveys developments in the sociology of art and theories of mediation to examine the contribution of technical devices and institutions to musical creativity. In particular, it considers Actor-Network Theory as a means to analyse the contributions of ‘nonhuman actors’ to the social world of algorithmic music. Two case studies are discussed: the network music pioneers The Hub and the contemporary genre of live coding. The example of The Hub raises the question of technological change and the necessity of considering the external forces that bear on the instrumentarium of algorithmic music as part of its social ecology. The chapter analyses live coding, focusing on the associated actors’ use of the Internet. It then charts the online development of the TOPLAP manifesto to illustrate how the ‘true’ computer music that live coding seeks to articulate is an ongoing social negotiation. The final section uses the Issuecrawler software to analyse networks of association within live coding.

Musical Live Coding in Relation to Interactivity Variations

“…Over the last year, I selected examples that I encountered, and together they formed a structured set of live coding systems that illustrate diverse practices of interactivity variations 2 on single-person examples (see section 5). Live coding is a community that documents itself (Haworth 2018) and reflects on itself, and my intention is to contribute to the research goals and ethos of the community, of which I consider myself a part.…”

Knowing in Performing

“…It is only from the late 1980s through the 1990s that an alternative model of interdisciplinarity developed in this area -that of 'interdisciplinarity in one person' (Barry & Born 2013, 29) -because of the increasing availability and affordability of laptop computers and related software applications, enabling individuals and groups to 'skill up' and develop personalised computing environments or to work with standard music platforms and languages, including real-time languages for music synthesis, composition, performance and improvisation like SuperCollider or ChucK. 'Interdisciplinarity in one person' signals the arrival of MR practitioners who are themselves able to cross the boundary between music and technoscience, and therefore able to foster creative directions spanning this boundary (Dean 2009;Haworth 2018;McLean & Dean 2018). This kind of approach is based on premises such as "live music-making [as] a rich open task requires a rich open [computer] interface" (Stowell & McLean 2013, 1); that is, it espouses the intrinsic entanglement, the necessary co-dependence and co-evolution of creativity in both musical and technological practices.…”