Workshop | Pavlos Antoniadis: Lanthánon Chóros (Latent Space): Composing with objets trouvés and AI tools

Derivative of a 5-month long composition workshop at the Greek National Opera, Lanthánon Chóros (Greek for “latent space”) proposes an introductory 3-hour long workshop for multimodal composition beyond the score and the DAW, where “objets trouvés” (found objects) are processed through ethical and sustainable AI tools. Such practice should be understood as critically opposing popular practices for music generation through tools like Suno or Udio.

The target group of 10-15 active and 10-15 passive participants comprises computer music practitioners – both composers and/or performers – with an interest in theoretical and practical aspects of AI composition. After a rapid introduction to historical, technical, conceptual, aesthetic and legal issues, the participants will be guided into composing a short excerpt for the facilitator’s setup (grand piano, ROLI Seaboard RISE 2 MPE controller, R-IoT and MUGIC), to be performed in situ, according to the following plan:

The focus will be on efficient workflows, combination of disparate materials and software tools/agents, and interaction design, as well as issues of performativity, for example the role of the performer in relation to tools or agents and a robust typology of performer’s final control (skill-, rule- and model-based behavior). Basic knowledge of Max is welcome but not required.

Some of the questions to be addressed: What are the modalities we may use as first material for multimodal composition with AI? How can we process it and to what degree of input-output similarity? Are the outputs simulacra or authentic prototype works?  What are the ethical and sustainability constraints for tools/agents and materials in terms of copyright and legal requirements?

Pavlos Antoniadis is a creative technologist, pianist and musicologist, currently Associate Professor at the University of Ioannina, research collaborator of ismm at IRCAM, Paris, and education collaborator of the Greek National Opera in Athens. His AI-related research includes movement modeling, technology-enhanced learning, applications in computational and cognitive musicology, automatic improvisation and multimedia composition, as well as critical thinking on the biopolitics of musical performance. He holds a prize-winning PhD from the University of Strasbourg and IRCAM, an MA from the University of California, San Diego as a Fulbright Scholar, and an Integrated Master’s from the Department of Music Studies, University of Athens. He has conducted post-doctoral research at EUR-ArTeC, Université Paris 8 and at TU-Audiokommunikation Berlin as a Humboldt Stiftung Fellow. He also was Research Fellow of ERC MUTE, collaborator of ERC REACH at IRCAM and PhD supervisor and lecturer at the Doctoral program of Artistic Research in Music at Lund University, Sweden. His public speaking on AI includes forums such as the New European Bauhaus and the VOICES Festival in Berlin. Next to research and teaching, he has performed
in Europe, North and South America and Asia, with new music ensembles and as a soloist. He has recorded for MODE (2015 German Recording Critics Award), WERGO and Diatribe records.