Short Abstract

Exploring African experimental music at the intersection of tradition and technology, this panel examines AI, electronic music, sound archives, digital instruments and computational analysis, and their roles in transforming, transmitting and preserving African musical knowledge and practices.

Long Abstract

While observing the vibrant range of recent technological advancements dedicated to the performance of traditional African music, the panel aims to expand into dialogues and research questions to discuss the impact arising from the tradition-technology nexus of composing, improvising, teaching, learning and researching African music, as well as the subsequent exchange, transmission and preservation of musical knowledge, skills and practices between people, cultures and societies. As Voisin and Arom (1998) advocate for the embrace of technology in their theoretical analyses, and Mbembe (2015) notes that the Internet contributes to building an Afropolitan society, this conference seeks to explore how technology shapes the future of traditional music in Africa, and consider its implications for sustaining, promoting and transforming traditional cultures. Some key questions include: How can African musical concepts generate new compositional systems? Can computational models represent musical relationships without reducing them to Western analytical categories? Can technology respond to the relational and embodied nature of African music and practices? The panel will focus on, but not limited to, five sub-topics open for paper submissions:

Electronic music as agency – the intercultural polyrhythm and embodiment in new composition and improvisation systems

AI and data processing – Artificial intelligence and human-machine co-creation processes

Sound archives – Revival of sound archives through electronic music creation

MIDI Instruments and sound sampling – Digital musical instruments for re-sounding cultural heritage and experimentation

Transcription and analytic models – Technological tools for music analysis and transcription

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