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The Ai Music Generation Challenge 2023: “Artificial Music Traditions”

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On March 15, 2023

In Call for applications, KTH, posthumanist performativity

Associate Professor, Bob Sturm from KTH is putting on The Ai Music Generation Challenge 2023, which focuses on “Artificial Music Traditions”: https://github.com/boblsturm/aimusicgenerationchallenge2023


Unlike the previous three editions (2020, 2021, 2022), the 2023 challenge is focused on generating an artificial music tradition rather than generating a particular form of existing traditional music.

What is the challenge?

Use any kind of artificial intelligence (one system or many different systems) in any way to generate an artificial music tradition. This could entail symbolic music, audio recordings, lyrics, dances, imagery, costumes, myths, instruments, ephemera, websites, ethnomusicological or anthropological studies, and so on. To make this more concrete some possibilities could be:

  • Instrumental music from an imaginary country
  • Teetotaler songs of a Nordic community
  • Music to accompany royal visits to medieval garderobes
  • Alien music practices resulting from the discovery and “decoding” of the record on Voyager 1

Particular inspirations for the 2023 challenge include:

How?

  1. By SEPTEMBER 4, register your intent to participate by notifying the organizer.
  2. Start generating documentary evidence of your artificial music tradition.
  3. Write a document describing your team and technical process, as well as reflecting on issues surrounding cultural appropriation in the submitted work, and clarity regarding its use of data and its intentions.
  4. By DECEMBER 8, email the organizer:
  • a link to download the documentary evidence of your artificial music tradition.
  • your document (pdf).

Evaluation

One can see this challenge as a call for work to be considered for a future festival. The judges are “curators”, who are looking to create a compelling program of “music traditions” generated entirely by, or with the assistance of, artificial intelligence. This future festival aims to delve deep into theoretical and practical questions of the application of artificial intelligence to culture, raising awareness of the many issues and dilemmas involved, from the economic and political to the technological and (post)humanistic. The curators seek to programme works showcasing a diversity of approaches and outcomes, and are especially interested in multi-layered work crossing material boundaries, all the while using artificial intelligence in some way or another. The curators are not necessarily looking for finished or complete work, but instead work that has a clear connection to the theme of the festival, showing evidence of deep reflection on the associated issues, and that can contribute to engaging and productive discussion.

The curators retain the right to not programme submitted work for a variety of reasons, including a lack of transparency, a lack of consideration of the use of data from existing cultures, and so on.

CALL FOR APPLICATIONS: Gender and Sustainability – Introducing Feminist Environmental Humanities PhD course (FAD3115)

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On October 19, 2022

In Call for applications, Courses, KTH, Linköping University, News

This electable course in the doctoral program, Art, Technology and Design (7,5 credits) is an educational effort, supported by the KTH Equality Office for the integration of knowledge on gender equity in sustainable development research, provided by the KTH School of Architecture and the Built Environment and the multi-university platform The Posthumanities Hub, with Tema Genus, Linköping University.

Gender and Sustainability: Introducing Feminist Environmental Humanities and Posthumanities

The PhD course will be held online, and combines critical and creative perspectives on gender and sustainability from the emerging field of environmental humanities as it overlaps with science, technology, humanities, art and feminist theory-practices. It explores postdisciplinary directions in sustainability from a set of positions in environmental humanities and feminist posthumanities.

The course provides an introduction into the conceptual landscape of feminist environmental humanities, and an orientation into its methodological trajectories across the fields of science, technology, art and design. Notions of different scientific traditions in the past and present, and of inter- and transdisciplinary research are presented and framed in ways that are particularly useful for PhD researchers pursuing environmental humanities/postdisciplinary studies and practice-oriented research in art and arts (humanities), technology and design. PhD researchers are provided with an understanding of key concepts – and the relationship between research questions, methods, objectives and outcomes – through lectures, literature seminars, workshops and collaborative project work. The course introduces participants to thinking on situated knowledge practices and ethics amidst a plethora of critical methodologies, qualitative and innovative methods, and performative research practices. This course is an invaluable introduction to the ecologies of multispecies, techno-, citizen- and other forms of posthumanities. On completion of the course, PhD researchers will be provided with tools to critically reflect over the epistemological and ethical challenges inherent to their own research practices and doctoral work, but also in relationship to gender, sustainability and to other actors involved in the very social business of scholarship.


Participants

To be eligible for the course, PhD researchers must have completed a masters’ degree or have an equivalent level of education in STS, history of science, technology and environment studies, gender studies, technology, art or design (such as architecture, planning, civil engineering, arts, crafts, and design) or affiliated subjects within the humanities and social sciences.

Preliminary dates (ONLINE)

Module 1 – Re-inventing nature, re-inventing methodology: 5-6 December 2022
Module 2 – Doing gender and sustainability: Practice-oriented research: 16-17 January 2023
Module 3 – Ethics in thinking practice: 20-21 February 2023
Module 4 – Gender and sustainability in new registers: Knowledge communication: 27-28 March 2023.

Coordinators and Guest Lecturers

The course will be coordinated and taught by a unique team of teachers, combining gender, sustainability, environmental humanities, feminist posthumanities and practice-oriented research:  

  • Meike Schalk, Associate Professor, KTH School of Architecture, architectural environmental humanities
  • Cecilia Åsberg, Professor, Gender, nature, culture, The Posthumanities Hub, Linköping University (guest/professor at KTH and Oslo MET)
  • Marietta Radomska, Assistant Professor in Environmental Humanities, Gender Studies, Linköping University, biophilosophy, eco/bio-art
  • Janna Holmstedt, PhD, Swedish Historical Museums, Artistic Researcher
  • Jesse Peterson, Postdoc, The Posthumanities Hub, Gender Studies, Linköping University

And guest lecturers (TBA).

The course is an open collaboration with the KTH gender network, The Posthumanities Hub, a multi-university research group and platform for feminist posthumanities www.posthumanitieshub.net and Gender Studies, Linköping University.

Application for this Doctoral Course

Deadline for application is 7th November 2022. (If accepted you receive a notice of acceptance and the course readings by 11th November.)

Please apply FORMALLY to the PhD course Gender & Sustainability by submitting an APPLICATION to meike.schalk@arch.kth.se

Include the following documents:

  • CV (short bio), one page
  • Letter of motivation, half a page (why you would benefit from this course in your PhD-work)
  • SHORT description of PhD project, one page maximum, with aim and research question, material and practice-oriented/methodological approaches and challenges

WARMLY WELCOME!

AI-artist: You are WANTED!

By

On September 21, 2022

In KTH, Linköping University, More-than-human Conversations BLOG SERIES, Okategoriserade, Projects, Research HELP NEEDED

We are reaching out to you as an artist who creates inspiring work involving AI, and would like to invite you to participate in an interview study. It would mean the world to us in this WASP-HS research project AI and the Artistic Imaginary!

Our research team at KTH (and LiU) is working on a project that investigates sustainability and ethics of Creative-AI. Our goal is to understand how creative practitioners are using AI technologies in their work processes, and to reflect on this from sustainability and ethics perspectives. Our interviews are expected to inform Creative-AI practitioners (artists as well as engineers) working in the field. 

In the future, we plan to expand this to other forms of collaborations (workshops, design and development of Creative-AI systems, etc.) with interested artists.

Some basic information about the interviews:

  • Interview takes approximately 1 hour and will be conducted at an agreed-upon time (flexible) on Zoom. 
  • Research is anonymized/pseudonymized and your data will be treated according to GDPR guidelines
  • The interview will be recorded (audio, video) for internal analysis purposes
  • Transcriptions and other anonymized material will be shared for non-commercial purposes only

We can provide a voucher as a gesture of gratitude for your time and effort.  

Please let us know if you would be interested in participating in our study, and do not hesitate to ask for further information. Don’t be shy – email us, Petra and Anna-Kaisa!


Wishing you a nice summer!

Kind regards,

Petra Jääskeläinen (researcher) – email: ppja@kth.se

Anna-Kaisa Kaila (researcher) – email: akkaila@kth.se

Andre Holzapfel (principal investigator)

Bob L. T. Sturm (co-principal investigator)

Cecilia Åsberg (co-principal investigator)

KTH Royal Institute of Technology, Stockholm, Sweden

MUSaiC FESTIVAL

By

On August 23, 2022

In Conferences, Events, KTH, More-than-human Conversations BLOG SERIES

November 22-24 Stockholm

A series of lectures and concerts devoted to the themes of the MUSAiC Project and beyond! How can one judge applications of artificial intelligence (AI) to music along dimensions of utility, impact, and ethics? How do creative AI systems affect the use and worth of music in particular contexts? How can ethical considerations be folded into the engineering and application of these kinds of systems? Should there be “laws of AI” that make explicit the responsibility of the AI technologist to the domains where the technology is to be applied? What creative possibilities are hindered or facilitated by the “flaws” of an AI system’s knowledge of music?

Confirmed Keynotes

Jonathan Sterne, Professor and James McGill Chair in Culture and Technology

Cecilia Åsberg, Professor and director of the Posthumanities Hub, Linköping University

Eric A Drott, Associate Professor of Theory, University of Texas at Austin

Confirmed Speakers and Performers

This event is organized by Bob L. T. Sturm (KTH) in collaboration with KMH and Fylkingen, with funding provided by:

RECLAIMING FUTURES: Storying Change

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On March 21, 2022

In Conferences, Events, Humus Economicus Collaboratory, KTH, Linköping University

Warmly welcome to Färgfabriken on Saturday 2 April!

Saturday 2 April, 13:00-16:00 hrs, at KONSTHALLEN FÄRGFABRIKEN, Lövholmsbrinken 1, Liljeholmen, Stockholm.

MORE INFO – reclaimingfutures.se

This is a YOUTH SCIENCE/Environmental Arts/ANTHROPOCENE FESTIVAL!

In the FORMAS-project Reclaiming Futures – Storying Change teenagers and researchers engage in a conversation on climate change, environmental issues and our relationship to ecology. Now, we show off some of the results from these conversations – a series of short films and a festival program curated and produced by the kids themselves!

Time: Saturday 2 april 13.00 to 16.00 hrs

Venue: Konsthallen Färgfabriken, Lövholmsbrinken 1, Liljeholmen, Stockholm. 

Reclaiming Futures is a modus operandi, a way to take back the futures from the past settings still shaping the world to come. In particular, Reclaiming Futures is a way to empower young people’s position in the public debate on environmentalism and climate governance. The climate is an issue for more than technocrats, experts, politicians and academics – it is for everybody.

Environmental research is not just about numbers, data and statistics. It is also about us as people, and how we relate to the environment, to life and death (and for whom) on this planet. It is about how we see ourselves in relationship to the environment we are changing – do we think ourselves outside it or are we part of the world? If we are to understand the impact of climate change and species extinction rates and how to handle it, we need to learn of the greater webs of relationships of living things, nonhuman animals and plants, as well as humans and our differences, says Cecilia Åsberg, a researcher in the environmental humanities, professor at Linköping University and one of the initiators of this project.

In Reclaiming Futures youngsters and researchers, teachers, film makers, artists, curators and science journalists participate with their special insights into climate- and research communication. During 2021 and 2022 the teenagers and researchers convened for workshops and conversations on today´s climate and environmental situation. The youngsters were trained in efficient cultural communication and taught how to formulate their own stories by images and film making, later to take form in a number of short films and stories of their own making. In parallel, other groups, like a young art-activist collective in Gnesta, and a youth councel at Färgfabriken, made for the curated program, the exhibition space and framework of this festival.

This festival will exhibit the results of the work, and it contains besides short film screenings also curated conversations between youth and researchers, shorter talks and lectures, creative expressions and societal frameworks.

– Reclaiming Futures is a mode of working that paves new ways for a science communication of reciprocity. The conversations and collaborations exhibit how society not only needs a new configuration of knowledge with multiple voices and stakeholders, but also new ways of communicating and relating to the social imagery, the cultural commentary and especially to the future making potentials of youth, says Cecilia Åsberg.

Info

Projektet Reclaiming Futures – Storying Change är en fortsättning på pilotprojektet Popularizing Environmental Humanities (2019) och finansieras med medel från forskningsstiftelsen Formas. Projektet drivs i samarbetet mellan forskargruppen The Posthumanities Hub vid (bla) Linköpings universitet, konsthallen Färgfabriken i Stockholm, Kajman Media/Lotten Wiklund vetenskapsjournalist samt dokumentärfilmaren Karin Wegsjö på KW produktion. I projektet ingår även Bromma gymnasium och Artlab Gnesta, Squid Squad samt ett flertal intressenter. 

Projektet sträcker sig över 2021 och 2023 och kulminerar nu i en vetenskapsfestival på Konsthallen färgfabriken i Stockholm. Det pedagogiska arbetet i Reclaiming Futures bygger på workshopmetoder som utvecklats och utvärderats i tidigare projekt. Nu dokumenteras arbetet och framledes kommer metoder och tillvägagångssätt att struktureras och tillgängliggöras så att lärare och andra som är intresserade har möjlighet att arbeta vidare med ungdomar och klimatkommunikation. Modellen kommer att publiceras på www.reclaimingfutures.se

Kontakt: 

Karin Englund, projektledare Färgfabriken, 0736 84 27 23, karin@fargfabriken.se 

Lotten Wiklund, projektledare Kajman Media, 070-651 55 30, lotten@kajman.se

Cecilia Åsberg, projektledare Reclaiming Futures Linköpings universitet, 070 1918513, cecilia.asberg@liu.se



FB EVENT  https://www.facebook.com/events/4927081707389635?ref=newsfeed

LÄS MER OM RECLAIMING FUTURES HÄR: https://reclaimingfutures.se/

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