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strong collaboration through negotiation: that has distinctive expectations (leader-
ship) and finds a way to satisfy those expectations whilst also accommodating the
behaviour and expectations of the performer (participation). Achieving this balance
can be seen as a well-formed creative challenge, one that requires autonomy.
Systems that are capable of successful negotiation are a goal for Live Algorithms
research. A relevant question is how minimal a system can be whilst achieving a
sense of negotiation in performance. Coupling can be seen as a weaker form of
negotiation. Negotiation can be seen as fulfilling the traits autonomy, participation
and leadership most fully. Novelty (leading to creativity) can be introduced into the
expectation of the system.
Shadowing and mirroring can be seen as behaviours that attempt to offer the
semblance of participation through acknowledgement of the performer's output,
demonstrating the ability of the system to produce meaningful responses. Coupling
and negotiation, on the other hand, can be seen as behaviours that attempt to create
a sense of mutualism between performer and Live Algorithm (thus autonomy and
leadership on behalf of the Live Algorithm), by imposing the reciprocal demand on
the performer to satisfy some expectation in the Live Algorithm itself.
6.4.2 Agency and Live Algorithms
Music involves temporal dynamics on a number of time scales, from the waves
and particles of microsound, through the patterning of rhythm, meter and melody,
through movements, concerts, compilations and mixtapes, and out towards larger
periods of time, those of genres, subcultures, individual lives and eras (see Chap. 7
for a similar discussion). Musical agency, the influence someone or something has
on a body of music, which can be thought of in terms of the four categories presented
in Sect.
6.2.2
, actually applies at all of these time scales.
For sensible reasons, Live Algorithms focus on the kind of agency that is con-
centrated in a single performance, defined by Bown et al. (
2009
)as
performative
agency
. But a great deal is lost about the musical process if we strictly narrow our
focus to this time scale: in short, what a performer brings to a performance. For a
free improvisor, we can think of the information stored in their bodily memory. For
a DJ, we can include the material carried in their record box. In all cases, perform-
ing individuals bring with them a tradition, embodied in the development of a style,
whether through practice, through social interaction or through the construction and
configuration of their musical tools and resources (including instruments and bits of
data).
It is hard to categorise exactly what is going on in terms of performative agency
when you hear the remote influence of performer A in the behaviour of performer B,
but it is necessary to consider this process in its broadest sense in order to correctly
approach the agency of Live Algorithms. There are many channels through which
the work of one individual becomes involved in the work of another, through the
imitation of playing or singing styles, cover versions and remixes, the copying of
