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Simulation and Computer Experimentation in Music and Sound Art

Symposium Organised by:
‘Music, Thought and Technology’ (Orpheus Institute, Ghent) and
‘Algorithms that Matter’ (Institute of Electronic Music and Acoustics, University of Music and Performing Arts Graz)

From March 21, 2019 until March 22, 2019

Seminar

The seminar aims to bring together practitioners and scholars to discuss
the wide-reaching implications of the ‘agential cut’ (Barad) or ‘ontic
cut’ (Rheinberger) – the separation between operationalised model or
abstract theory and perceived or experimentally verified ‘reality’, the
fissure already indicated by Husserl and realised in experimental
computational systems.

almat.iem.at
orpheusinstituut.be/en/projects/music-thought-and-technology


Details:

Computational methods have made their way into most of scientific and
artistic fields; simulation has become a paradigmatic mode in
contemporary practices. In science, in design, in medicine and in art,
simulations of natural, human, technological or abstract systems (or
techniques derived from simulation) are ubiquitous. The development of
new methods of computation and simulation in the natural sciences
initiated an ongoing discussion about the relationship of in silico
experiments to empirical or theoretical modes of investigation.

The seminar aims to bring together practitioners and scholars to discuss
the wide-reaching implications of the ‘agential cut’ (Barad) or ‘ontic
cut’ (Rheinberger) – the separation between operationalised model or
abstract theory and perceived or experimentally verified ‘reality’, the
fissure already indicated by Husserl and realised in experimental
computational systems. These introduce a new type of interface between
the machinery and what is implemented, allowing for the ongoing
production of new data and going beyond the traditional atemporal
theoretical models; crucially, simulations also allow new and mobile
perspectives onto the ‘object’ modelled by tracing contingent, situated,
multiple paths through what DeLanda describes as ‘a space of
possibilities’ – alternative realities within a space that displays
stability or consistency at another level. In Rheinberger’s words ‘it
becomes urgent to ask whether computer simulations represent a new
category of epistemic object altogether.’

Computational models afford a way to test theoretical constructs or
observe the consequences of non-physical or even imaginary
hypotheses. One arrives at a critical conception of computation,
situating it beyond the dualism of a deductive, representational
approach and an inductive, empirical approach, acknowledging a
speculative quality of algorithms that ‘are not simply the computational
version of mathematical axioms, but are to be conceived as actualities,
self-constituting composites of data’ and ‘equipped with their own
procedure for prehending data.’ (Parisi) The very activity of
experimentation and augmenting the language of artistic creation is
exposed through the use of algorithms.