On Generative Music

(…) At the heart of generative music lies the theoretical cybernetic Black Box: an apparatus encoded with processes that are indeterminate, but not random. The Black Box’s processes become off-limits once the process parameters are set and the piece is initiated. In Freudian terms, the Black Box transforms into a partial autonomous object; an undying energy that forces the composer to escape their intentions, diminishing their role as the authority of musical values. This paradigm shift reverses the roles of subject (composer) and object (apparatus), ripping apart the unilateral nature of this typically tyrannical exchange.