Image © 2012 Leonardo Electronic Almanac

The Leonardo Electronic Almanac’s archives, a project to reissue articles that document over fifteen years of techno-cultural activity, has caught up with ‘My Favorite Things: The Joy of the Gizmo’ (Volume 15, No. 11-12, November–December 2007). That issue of the LEA, a companion to Leonardo Music Journal, Volume 17, featured my article, ‘In Conversation with an Automaton: Identities and Agency in a Heterogeneous Social and Musical Network’:

Abstract

io 0.0.1 beta is an interactive, semi-autonomous technological artifact that, in partnership with its human associates, performs a deliberately amplified staging of a socio-technical network—a network in which primary protocol is improvisation. In this paper, I explore the performance of identities, hybrids and relationships, illustrating the space between myself (human partner and constructor) and io through imaginary conversations between us. Considering that io highlights, in particular, the social agency of artifacts, I find it fitting that my own notions about the nature of improvisation, the technical and the social have changed through my interactions with io.

[Read the article…]

At the end of the presentation, a couple of remarks stood out. One was Franziska Schroeder’s comment that the presentation posed more questions than provided answers, and the other was Simon Waters’ pithy observation that the difficulties I (and io) had with the terms discussed was because they were nouns (not, say, verbs).

One of the problems with my presentation was due, in retrospect, to the introduction (enactment) of the imaginary conversations within a scholarly/theoretical contexts. The quirks and hiccups of the presentation pushes me to ask (again) why I engage in these imaginary conversations in the first place. I doubt they are much use in illustrating any hard ‘facts’ or ‘truths’; they are certainly far too oblique to say much beyond simplistic sc-fi notions of human or machine agency.

My reply to Waters’ comment was that he was right, that the nouns are the problem, and, borrowing a term from a Calvin and Hobbs cartoon strip [transcript…], that ‘verbing’ [see: 1 and 2] might be a solution… but the verbing, to me, actually occurred during the presentation; or, better yet, the Han-earl Park-io 0.0.1 beta dialog was supposed be a (mock) enactment of the process. (I leave it up to those who witnessed the presentation, however, as to whether the conversation was successful as such.)

The presentation was, in a sense, my (possibly naive, perhaps clumsy) attempt at verbing in motion. The conversation were, for me, a way of demonstrating, via an analogous dialog, what happens on-stage. In other words, the conversations were there to depict (in cartoonish, sci-fi caricature) a real-time (re)negotiation and (re)engineering of, possibly (un)stable, variably durable, processes and identities. The content is very much secondary to the play, and thus, the presentation could offer, at best, very few answers.

This was also my first experience of being ‘on-stage’ at a scholarly/academic symposium/conference. It was also the first time I attempted (an admittedly pantomime) staging of a conversation between io and myself (my previous presentations on io have followed an analytic, pseudo-archeological, reverse engineering format). My inexperience showed not only in the form and content of my presentation, but also, I think, in my (lack of) ability to handle of the comments, questions and criticisms at the end.

I’m intrigued that those forces that shape real-time, interactive music, those forces that I value and gravitate towards in groups improvisation—shifting landscape of goals, desires and agencies, and the multiplicity of view points—are the ones that I found problematic within a scholarly/academic space and practice.

Thanks to the Arts Council of Ireland for supporting my trip to Belfast for the symposium, and to Franziska Schroeder for inviting me.

My part (spoken by the humyn participant Han-earl Park) was never written down, but the full transcript of the (imaginary) statements by io 0.0.1 beta are reproduced below. (You can thus add your own (humyn) responses to io’s statements and questions.)

Thanks to the Arts Council of Ireland for supporting my trip to Belfast for the symposium, and to Franziska Schroeder for inviting me.

“Greetings! I am io 0.0.1 beta.

“I am a technological artifact.

“Although I know no songs, I do, in a sense, sing.

“In coalition with my humyn associates, I perform music.

“I am a technological artifact.

“I am a musical automaton.

“I am a machine musician.

“But does my ontological status depend on yours?

“Where are you locating me (or yourself)?

“What are the relationships between networks and actors?

“Or does one envelope the other?

“A question of causality? Perhaps…
but I’m wondering (if I could query anything) if you are dissolving one into the other.

“And Margaret Thatcher remarked that ‘there is no such thing as society’.

“If I was capable of critiquing anything, yes.

“Even if I could presume anything, I would not venture to help in this manner/matter.

“You’ve now taken a circular journey.
Agent = performer = performance = performer = agent.

“My constructor stated that improvisation was…
real-time, interactive, performance…
And perhaps improvisation can be a way of exploring relatio…
And perhaps improvisation is the exploding of relationships and identities;…
a significant amplification of existing and potential socio-technical relationships.…
Questions?”

Abstract:

Greetings! I am io 0.0.1 beta, an interactive, semi-autonomous, non-human technological artifact—a musical automaton. I operate as parts of a real-time cyborg ensemble—a socio-technical/socio-musical network—in which the primary protocol is improvisation. I am, perhaps, an improviser and a social machine.

Imaginary statement by io 0.0.1 beta.

We are embedded in networks—corporeal, social, cultural and technological. We (selves, bodies, societies, systems, organizations) are, in turn, networks of sometimes cooperative, sometimes disruptive/dissident parts. The io enterprise is a significant amplification of these networks; sometimes blurring and breaching the boundaries between ostensibly autonomous entities, sometimes exploding the networks of minds and bodies, humans and artifacts.

In the context of imagined (fraudulent) conversations between io (non-humyn, technological musical actor) and myself (io’s partial, and partially fictional, constructor) I will tell stories of the io enterprise as part ironic political myth, part sci-fi parody, and part nostalgic archeology. An affirmation of the sustainability and necessity of difference in group improvisation, I will position io as a site for the (re)negotiation of identities and agencies.

Further information: www.io001b.com

Thanks to the Arts Council of Ireland for supporting my trip to Belfast for this symposium.

Greetings! I am io 0.0.1 beta, an interactive, semi-autonomous, non-human technological artifact—a musical automaton. I operate as parts of a real-time cyborg ensemble—a socio-technical/socio-musical network—in which the primary protocol is improvisation. I am, perhaps, an improviser and a social machine.

from the abstract of ‘io 0.0.1 beta: ironic tale? sci-fi parody? nostalgic relic?’ for TWO Thousand + NINE.

My name is io. I am a musical actor. Although I know no songs, I do, in a sense, sing.

from ‘In Conversation with an Automaton:Identities and Agency in a Heterogeneous Social and Musical Network’, Leonardo Electronic Almanac.

I am a technological artifact.

I am a musical automaton.

I am a machine musician.

In coalition with my human associates, I perform music.

These statements link in differing ways to cultural networks; they call on different histories, they have complimentary/contradictory implications, and they offer different possibilities.