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Repetition - Breaking the Loop
The record industry maintains its status in the global economy and its
income streams by way of repetition. Music that is played over and over
again so much that it creates its own audience that in turn purchase its
representation to listen to it over and over again in their homes, their
cars, walkmans, bathrooms... anywhere one can think to place a speaker.
Imagine for a moment music that doesn't repeat, that is never heard the
same twice, that is somehow fresh every time it is heard. A new genre
of music, self-evolving and at present, difficult to commodify is emerging.
Generative music is algorithmically driven to produce variation, ongoing
evolution and development of sounds. Techniques for creating generative
music are not new to composers, but ready access to the technology to
produce and publish it widely has not.
In the past two years a small UK based software development company, SSEYO,
has developed a suite of generative music software. The authoring tool,
Koan, is essentially an interface to SSEYO's algorithms, offering over 250
parameters within which to alter the way sounds and arrangements can mutate
over time.
The Australian Broadcasting Corporation's The Listening Room commissioned
one such composition. Since August, it has been re-composing itself in
real-time over the Internet. Created by Toy Satellite's Andrew Garton, in
collaboration with performance artist, Stelarc, Sensorium Connect provided
visitors to its web site with an ever-changing sound space, an exploration
of non-repetitive creative possibilities.
The process of creation, performance and distribution of music is changing.
The Internet is an amorphous infrastructure for the liberation of creative
ideas and is no doubt influencing the work of artists the world over. It is
a time of enriching exploration and discovery that is akin to the period
during which Francesco Pierro was to discover perspective and the body's
relationship to space.
Sensorium Connect
www.abc.net.au/arts/lroom/sensorium
SSEYO / Koan Generative Music Software
www.sseyo.com |
