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Coming together: composition by negotiation

Published: 25 October 2010 Publication History

Abstract

In this paper, we describe a software system that generates unique musical compositions in realtime, created by four autonomous multi-agents. Given no explicit musical data, agents explore their environment, building beliefs through interactions with other agents via messaging and listening (to both audio and/or MIDI data), generating goals, and executing plans. The artistic focus of Coming Together is the actual process of convergence, heard during performance (each of which usually lasts about ten minutes): the movement from random individualism to converged ensemble interaction. If convergence is successful, four additional agents are instantiated that exploit the emergent harmony and rhythm through brief, but beautiful melodic gestures. Once these agents have completed their work, or if the original "explorer" agents fail to converge, the system resets itself, and the process begins again.

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Cited By

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  • (2011)A sonic eco-system of self-organising musical agentsProceedings of the 2011 international conference on Applications of evolutionary computation - Volume Part II10.5555/2008445.2008478(283-292)Online publication date: 27-Apr-2011
  • (2011)A Sonic Eco-System of Self-Organising Musical AgentsApplications of Evolutionary Computation10.1007/978-3-642-20520-0_29(283-292)Online publication date: 2011

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  1. Coming together: composition by negotiation

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    cover image ACM Conferences
    MM '10: Proceedings of the 18th ACM international conference on Multimedia
    October 2010
    1836 pages
    ISBN:9781605589336
    DOI:10.1145/1873951
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    Publication History

    Published: 25 October 2010

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    Author Tags

    1. emergent art
    2. generative music
    3. multi-agents

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    MM '10: ACM Multimedia Conference
    October 25 - 29, 2010
    Firenze, Italy

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    • (2011)A sonic eco-system of self-organising musical agentsProceedings of the 2011 international conference on Applications of evolutionary computation - Volume Part II10.5555/2008445.2008478(283-292)Online publication date: 27-Apr-2011
    • (2011)A Sonic Eco-System of Self-Organising Musical AgentsApplications of Evolutionary Computation10.1007/978-3-642-20520-0_29(283-292)Online publication date: 2011

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