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Details of Grant
 
EPSRC Reference: GR/T21479/01
Title: LiveAlgorithms for Music
Principal Investigator: Dr T Blackwell
Other Investigators:
Dr M Young
Researcher Co-investigator:
Project Partner:
Department: Computing Department
Organisation: Goldsmiths College
Scheme: Standard Research
Starts: 01 January 2005 Ends: 31 December 2006 Value (£): 41,026
EPSRC Research Topic Classifications:
Artificial Intelligence Technologies Cognitive Science Applications in ICT
Neural Computing User Interface Technologies
EPSRC Industrial Sector Classifications:
Creative Industries
Related Grants:
Panel History:  
Summary
The vision for this network is the development of an artificial music collaborator. This machine partner would take part in musical performance just as a human might; adapting sensitively to change, making creative contributions, and developing musical ideas suggested by others.

Such a system would be running what we call a "live algorithm". This term reflects the idea that the target system would be capable of live interaction under the rigorous demands of a concert performance, and also would be system uninhibited by rules and conventions - a kind of musical artificial life.

It is projected that this goal will be achieved by looking for novel patterning algorithms from apparently non-musical fields such as artificial life, evolutionary computation, neural computation, and swarm intelligence, and finding mappings from these patterns into musical structure. This quest would result in a machine with an unusual musical identity: in order to make this identity understandable to people it will be necessary to link the patterning algorithm to the outside world through a sensitive but human-understandable interface.

The live algorithm differs radically from existing computer music paradigms in that it actively takes part in the ongoing musical dialogue, rather than just reacting to events.
Final Report Summary
No change to the original summary, except to mention that the network also investigated patterning algorithms from the newly emerging field of unconventional computation.
Further Information:  
Organisation Website: http://www.gold.ac.uk
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