Posthuman Music

02 — Research

Research Strands

Project leaflet PDF
Research frameworkFour overlapping research strands connect music philosophy and music practice, and the study of emerging practices with the development of new creative practices. Research Strand 4, the Experimental Creative Lab, encompasses and brings together the other three strands. All four research strands are shown together.

Research Strand01

Posthumanism and Assemblage Theory

Lead · Paulo de Assis

RS1 investigates what happens to music, creativity, and artistic practice when we decenter the human, embrace technological agency, and think in terms of assemblages rather than works.

  • How do posthumanist perspectives transform ideas of agency and creativity?
  • What does assemblage theory reveal about musical works in the digital age?
  • How do AI and blockchain reshape the artwork and its constitutive parts?
  • What ethical and aesthetic frameworks are needed for hybrid human–nonhuman musical practices today?

Research Strand02

Decentralised Creativity: Algorithmic Agency

Lead · Martin Zeilinger

RS2 studies how AI and blockchain enable new forms of distributed authorship and tactical interventions that challenge intellectual property regimes and human-centered creative agency.

  • How do AI and blockchain redistribute creative agency?
  • Which IP regimes are disrupted by AI/blockchain art projects?
  • What methods are needed to analyze posthuman agential assemblages?
  • How might tactical uses of AI and blockchain reshape governance?

Research Strand03

New Creative Practices with AI and Blockchain

Lead · Adam Łukawski

RS3 explores practice-based research on composition with agential AI, the creative use of smart contracts, algorithmic workflows, and particalisation of music.

  • How can musical works be deconstructed and reassembled for new media?
  • Which workflows integrate AI and blockchain into composition?
  • How do dynamic digital assets influence creative practice?
  • What new taxonomies of musical works emerge from human-AI collaboration?

Research Strand04

Experimental Creative Lab

Lead researchers · Paulo de Assis, Martin Zeilinger, Adam Łukawski

RS4 is a creative and experimental lab that brings together insights and results from the other three research strands, aiming at the generation of new musical entities that can take the form of prototypes, musical works, installations and performances.

  • How can AI and blockchain co-create generative music systems?
  • In what ways do smart contracts enable "living" musical works?
  • What new methodologies emerge when composers design AI systems?
  • What are the ethical and aesthetic implications of shared agency?