Abstract
Musical AI systems behave in non-linear, dynamic ways that exceed the tool-oriented framings inherited from earlier instrument design. Existing frames of control and ensemble interaction do not articulate the entangled, relational agency that emerges when performers work with AI feedback instruments over time. We examine a duet practice with two AI-enabled feedback instruments, Sù and Agentier, in which feedback operates at the inner level of the AI's recurrent processes and the outer loop of musical interaction between performer, instrument, and co-performer. Our work draws on agential realism and a diffractive dialogue methodology to read our independent reflections through one another across five performances, examining how agency is enacted between performers and AI instruments. We find that control and agency are relational and shift across performances; musical textures enact feedback moments of control with performers; reaching a productive feedback environment is itself a shared exploratory act; and performers maintain their instruments through funnelling and injection, developing the skill of navigating agency along a continuous spectrum. Feedback musicianship with AI instruments demands navigation of this relational agency, displacing the leading-versus-responding binary that initially framed our reflections. This work contributes a materially-grounded vocabulary for AI feedback musicianship and a model of human-AI creative collaboration in which mutual agency is worked for through practice rather than designed in.
Abstract (translated)
URL
https://arxiv.org/abs/2611.13555
