AI music (music generated by or with artificial intelligence technologies) is now part of established music ecosystems. While only a few years ago such music was “on the fringe”, it is quickly becoming more present and moving into the mainstream due in large part to the commercial exploitability of the technology, what it produces for what it costs, and its growing public accessibility (complete with claims of “democratizing” music production and composition). The development and application of AI to music creation is attracting significant sums of money from private circles, not to mention considerable efforts in academic engineering circles; yet, perhaps with the exception of intellectual property (e.g., legal ownership) and ethics (e.g., responsible use), many topics of AI music remain by and large under-explored by critical examination and reflection in the humanities and social sciences. This motivates several key questions for critical analysis and reflection:
The First International Conference in AI Music Studies 2024 explores the prospects, challenges and new methodologies required for the study of AI music within the Humanities and Social Sciences. It aims to bring into conversation scholars working in music computing, musicology, ethnomusicology, sound studies, science and technology studies, philosophy, ethics, economics, feminist and posthumanist studies to help define and develop, or even challenge the need for, a discipline of AI music studies. Further motivation for this conference comes from: B. L. T. Sturm, K. Déguernel, R. S. Huang, A. Holzapfel, O. Bown, N. Collins, J. Sterne, L. Cros Vila, L. Casini, D. Alberto Cabrera, E. A. Drott, and O. Ben-Tal, “MusAIcology: AI Music and the Need for a New Kind of Music Studies.” SocArXiv, 2024.
Financial support for the conference comes from:
We are excited to announce that the keynote speaker of the first conference is Dr. Georgina Born, Professor of Anthropology and Music at University College London.
We are seeking presentations, panels and workshops for the conference. Each presentation will be given 20 minutes in a session, and each session will conclude with a podium discussion of its presented works. Each panel will have 3-5 participants, and last at least 60 minutes with audience discussion. A workshop consists of two hours of directed work and discussion around a topic. To submit a presentation, please write an abstract of no more than 300 words about your work and how it relates to the core themes of the conference. For panels, please write a description of the topics to be discussed and composition of the panel. For workshops, please write a description of the topics to be worked with, a schedule, and information on the workshop leaders. Email these to aimusicstudies2024@kth.se by the date below.
TBD
The conference registration fee, and the exact location, have yet to be decided. Please see the conference website for the most current information https://boblsturm.github.io/aimusicstudies2024. Please send questions or comments to aimusicstudies2024@kth.se.