[Commlist] CfP: Algorithmic Music

CfP Reminder: 1 February

Algorithmic Music:  Value, Creativity and Artificial Intelligence



A One-Day Symposium: 11 April 2019



Call for papers



Hosted by Department of Music and the Department of Digital Humanities

King’s College London



New digital technologies—particularly the algorithms of streaming 
platforms such as Spotify—are having an unprecedented and 
little-understood effect on the way music is created and valued today. 
The music industry, of which the UK is a global centre, finds itself in 
a crucial transitional moment in which these new algorithmic and AI 
music technologies are developing apace. While Spotify's algorithm is 
already reshaping how music is valued in monetary terms, advances in AI 
are raising wider questions about the role of human creativity itself. 
How these technologies are configured and deployed in the immediate 
term—by established companies such as Spotify, Apple and Amazon, as well 
as by innovative tech startups—will transform and shape the profession 
of musician over the next few decades.



What motivates an algorithm?  What programming decisions are being made, 
in places like London and San Francisco, that will shape the future of 
musical composition, performance, and consumption across the globe?  How 
are these choices being informed? At the heart of these questions lie 
deeper philosophical concerns about how algorithms and AI—such as 
Facebook's News Feed, Google Search and Amazon's Alexa—are increasingly 
mediating our social and political lives, shaping our moral and ethical 
choices in the process. What role, for example, will AI play in shaping 
musical tastes of the future and how will composers respond? As the 
algorithms of Spotify and YouTube become ever more 'global' in their 
reach, what happens to musical practices and creativity in large and 
increasingly important parts of the world, such as South Asia, China and 
South America, that are frequently overlooked by a more western-centred 
music industry?



This interdisciplinary and industry-engaged symposium seeks to explore 
these questions via a range of ‘algorithmic objects’ – recommender 
systems, AI compositional tools, metadata sets etc. – with a view to 
developing new methodological approaches for publication in a 
high-ranking journal special issue.



The format of the day (subject to change) will include: 1. Key 
literature group discussion(s), 2. Individual 10-15 minute ‘algorithmic 
object’ presentation + discussion/troubleshooting, 3. Methodology 
roundtable.





We invite proposals for presentations/demonstrations of up to 15 
minutes, from any discipline or industry, that seek to interrogate a 
particular algorithmic music object.





Presentation/demo titles and abstracts of 250 words should be sent to 
(thomas.e.hodgson /at/ kcl.ac.uk)<mailto:(thomas.e.hodgson /at/ kcl.ac.uk)> by 1st 
February 2019. Notifications of acceptance will be sent by 15th February 
2019.



Programme Committee: Thomas Hodgson (Department of Music, King’s College 
London), Jonathan Gray (Department of the Digital Humanities, King’s 
College London)


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