This blog is dedicated to the aesthetic issues that arise from Neurotic, where punk bands perform to 3 giant robots that have been educated in classic punk (fuller description below).
Neurotic clearly references issues surrounding the validity of formalism, enhanced formalism, the emotive properties of music (should they actually exist) and the hardy perennial issue of whether or not humans are just complex machines. Arguments about a distinction between machine and humans that are based on man’s appreciation of ‘beauty’ are clearly under scrutiny here: Neurotic’s robots are ‘controlled’ by neural network programmes designed to mimic the brain’s mirror neurons. Mirror neurons, so it is claimed, govern our empathetic response to the world. So, do the robots empathize with the music? Do they enjoy the music?
In the robots we also see the possibility of a socially value free enjoyment of music – these robots have no heirs and graces, no normative social beliefs that would prohibit the enjoyment of any form of music. They don’t have cultural baggage – is their judgment objective as a result?
Join the debate about whether Neurotic’s robots are developing taste as their preferences develop. For more information see www.fiddian.com or www.andrewtweedie.de.
Andrew Tweedie (Director of Music, Neurotic)
3 Comments
wouldn’t the robots need pleasure centers in order to enjoy something? or do you see the act of dancing as sufficient evidence of enjoyment? i think you could see it as evidence of approval (‘yes, this seems right.. think i’m gonna dance now..’) but not enjoyment.
oops: for smiley, read ‘close bracket’. punctuation conspired against me.
It also opens up a wider debate about what constitutes art…without going into it here, it’s enough to ask…how has punk and the enjoyment of it been quantified/qualified, in order to produce a program with which the robots identify, in order to accept it and produce dance movements? It’s easy here just to think that Fiddian himself has been re-programmed…I’ve been researching memetics for years and currently writing a book about it…memetically, appreciation of a piece of work generates further acceptance and judgement of it as ‘art’…I’m interested in thinking about how the programmed response/acceptance by the robots of what they ‘hear’ can give us a rational/objective sense of what art is, rather than merely understanding it seated within our feelings and subjective thought…