Meshup #15 – Creative Musical Dialogues Between Human and Machine
Örjan de Manzano will give the short talk Creative Musical Dialogues Between Human and Machine: A Novel Approach to Studying Improvisation and Joint Action.
Abstract
Recent advances in AI have generated striking results in music, visual art, and poetry, often drawing attention to the artefacts themselves and how convincingly they resemble human creations. In music, platforms such as Udio and Suno promise effortless songwriting and media composition—but can AI also participate meaningfully in live musical improvisation?
This talk presents an ongoing Science–Art research project exploring AI as a real-time improvisation partner for human musicians. Improvisation offers a uniquely demanding test case: it integrates listening, performing, creating, evaluating, and imagining in the moment. Since 2022, Dr. Ben-Tal has been developing an AI-inspired system for live improvisation with human performers, a project developed further in collaboration with Dr. de Manzano to examine the musical, technical, and conceptual challenges of bringing AI onto the stage.
Dr. de Manzano will discuss the system’s ongoing development, its interactions with different pianists, and findings from interviews and physiological measurements collected during free improvisation with an artificial partner in the ArtLab at the Max Planck Institute for Empirical Aesthetics. The talk will also reflect on what human–computer co-creation can reveal about creativity, performance, and flow.
Bio
Örjan de Manzano is a senior researcher in cognitive neuroscience and Head of the Cognitive Neuropsychology Unit at the Max Planck Institute for Empirical Aesthetics in Frankfurt am Main. He is also an affiliated researcher at Karolinska Institutet in Stockholm and co-founder of the Centre for Culture, Cognition and Health at Karolinska Institutet. His research explores physiological, psychological, and neural mechanisms underlying learning, expertise, creativity, and health. Dr. de Manzano employs a broad range of methods, including psychometrics, psychophysiology, and neuroimaging, often using music and improvisation as both model systems and objects of study. His work has examined, among other topics, musicality, flow experiences, developmental and training environments, and the factors that foster creative engagement and achievement in music.
Access
MishMash MeetUps are short, informal meetings in the consortium where both early career and established researchers present ongoing projects. The events are open for everyone, but, for security reasons, Zoom links are only provided to people that are affiliated with a MishMash Work Package. If not, please ask for access.