Abstract
A musical agent is a digital system that tackles one or more musical creative tasks. In doing so, the agent automates a function that implies an aesthetic decision. Digital technologies allow computers to participate in live musical performances by performing musical actions such as generating new musical material or manipulating musical parameters, based on the sounds produced by a live musician in performance.
This research project investigates the development of musical agents in the context of free improvisation, focusing on the characteristics of the agent's autonomous behaviour. Differently from most common engineering applications, in which there is a clear problem to solve and measurable improvements towards a goal, creative tasks imply subjective preferences and coherence with style. Creative decisions are extremely subjective and they depend on context, therefore it is crucial that musicians are able to create and use systems that adapt to their specific style and needs. For this reason, this project focuses on developing low-resource models, based on small, curated corpora and integration with creative coding environments for music programming.
By employing a combination of user-centred design and practice-based research, this research investigates the autonomy of musical instruments from musician's perspectives.
When does a musical instrument stop feeling like a tool and starts feeling like an agent? What characteristics should an artificial agent have to successfully complement human creativity in an improvised performance?
Bio
Vincenzo is a doctoral researcher at the department of musicology, University of Oslo. He has a background in media engineering and machine learning, with applications to new media and experimental music. He is a practicing musician and sound artist, developing performances and installations based on interactive systems and algorithmic music. His PhD project investigates the design of artificial musical agents for performance and improvisation from a technical and aesthetic point of view.