Of altered instrumental relations: a practice-led inquiry into agency through musical performance with neural audio synthesis and violin

Halla Steinunn Stefánsdóttir^*Thor Magnusson

• University of Iceland, Reykjavik, Iceland

Recent developments in artificial intelligence are rapidly generating new musical practices. The use of generative AI in producing music has become well known but intelligent algorithms are also used as part of musical instruments, often employing small datasets and personal artistic data. Here, augmented computational agency alters the perception of the human performer and transforms the performer-instrument relationship. This raises new questions about co-creativity and prompts critical thinking regarding instrumental materiality, augmentation through code, and how musical expressivity and communication materializes in performance mediated by artificial intelligence. This article explores these issues through artistic research, building on artistic experimentation and live performance. The research involved designing an "intelligent violin," exploring the new phenomenological and creative relationships that emerge when a professional practitioner enters a performance context involving algorithmic augmentation. The project describes four phases of curating datasets, training a neural audio synthesis model, working with it in practice and performance, and finally analyzing the work, providing findings and documentation. The results present deeper insights into the agencies at play, the altered affordances and sociality of such creative encounters but also the multiple roles where responsibility and accountability are involved.