Collaborative Generative Music

This installation is a collaborative generative music work in which a number of distinct musical algorithms perform together.

Each algorithm is neither a simulation of a human player, nor a merely responsive instrument, nor an unresponsive playback device, and instead we refer to such algorithms as ‘behavioural objects’, manmade objects that embody complex behaviours.

Each has been designed to display some degree of autonomy, but also to respond to what is going on in its sonic environment in more or less evident ways, and the resulting musical output follows a path that is the product of this set of interactions.

This approach has become known as ecosystemic software art. Listening to the work is a process of hearing the behaviour of each object, and following the emerging patterns of interaction between the agents over shorter and longer time scales.

Collaborative Generative Music is a project by Ollie Bown, n electronic musician, programmer and researcher. Ollie’s main musical projects are Icarus and Not Applicable, research and software projects are publicised on Strangeloop.