Could a beautiful piano piece generate a beautiful (infra)structure? Dan Tepfer hints at a new creativity

In our current fever/panic about the powers of generative AI, we should remind ourselves how rich and startling our relationship with digital machines can be. How could the “sound of something” generate structures (and even infrastructures)? How might we represent that?

This is the work of Dan Tepfer - a consummate pianist, but also intimately in dialogue with computation that plays along with, and inspires him. He calls this relationship “Natural Machines”. The video above comes from an Aeon curation of his work - and another one below:

Dan’s 2023 work, available on his YouTube channel, is a thrilling record of his dialogues with playing machines. Below, he talks through going down a “rabbit hole” of harmony, while exploring a virtual world in which chords hover before him: