Talk by Eduardo Reck Miranda 7.30 pm at the Lighthouse Media Centre, Brighton followed by work in progress by Millie Young and Andy Webster at Sumo Bar, Brighton.

Eduardo Reck Miranda is both a composer and a computer scientist and author of Composing Music with Computers. His gave a talk entitled: Making Artificial Models of Music. Here is the abstract of his talk:

Artificial Life (Alife) is a discipline that studies natural living systems by simulating their biological phenomena in silico. The attempt to mimic biological phenomena on computers is proving to be a viable route for a better theoretical understanding of living organisms, let alone the practical applications of biological principles for technology (robotics, nanotechnology, etc.) and medicine. Because Alife is dealing with very complex phenomena, its development has fostered the creation of a pool of research tools for studying complexity. It is interesting though, that these tools are also proving to be useful in fields other than Biology, most notably Social Sciences and Linguistics. In this talk I will introduce three approaches to using Alife in music (engineering, generative and musicological) and will address a number of provocative questions such as: Can we study the origins and evolution of music by means of computer simulations? Can musical forms originate and evolve in artificially created worlds? If so, what is the aesthetical value of a piece of music composed by such a simulation?

After the talk, there were two works in progress downstairs at the Sumo bar. Millie Young showed music and art produced by Thai elephants and Andy Webster premiered his generative film Brighton Rock.