The Reincarnation of Blind Tom

Institute for Ideas and Imagination

The SNF Rendez-vous de l'Institut : The Fellow's Series: George Lewis

The Institute for Ideas and Imagination

Music, Machines, and SubjectivityBorn into slavery in 1849, Thomas “Blind Tom” Wiggins was one of the most famous American composer-pianists of his time. In 1924, Czech writer Karel Čapek’s play R.U.R. portrays a new source of labor, the “robot.” For both robots and slaves there is a denial of subjectivity, but theorist Fred Moten's important insight is that subjectivity can be heard. As a slave, Blind Tom was a mere commodity, but as Moten writes, "If the commodity could speak, it would be imbued with a certain spirit."This relationship between human and non-human subjectivities will be examined in this talk, with reference to the interactive AI improvisation systems George Lewis has been creating since 1979. Interacting with such systems forms a machine-human sociality that raises crucial questions, not only about how we experience artificial intelligence in the world, but also about agency, identity, subjectivity, social responsibility, and freedom.<a href="https://ideasimagination.columbia.edu/fellows/george-lewis/" title="https://ideasimagination.columbia.edu/fellows/george-lewis/" target="_blank" data-msys-clicktrack="0" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer">George Lewis</a> is an American composer, musicologist, and trombonist. He is Professor of American Music at Columbia University and Artistic Director of the International Contemporary Ensemble, as well as a member of the Association for the Advancement of Creative Musicians, a Fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences and the American Academy of Arts and Letters, a Corresponding Fellow of the British Academy, and a member of the Akademie der Künste Berlin.The Rendez-Vous de l’Institut Series is generously supported by the Stavros Niarchos Foundation. You will find a full calendar of the <a href="https://acrobat.adobe.com/id/urn:aaid:sc:EU:bbed31b7-2754-4fa6-b695-1f70a765c0de" title="https://acrobat.adobe.com/id/urn:aaid:sc:EU:bbed31b7-2754-4fa6-b695-1f70a765c0de" target="_blank" data-msys-clicktrack="0" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer">Fellows’ Talks</a>.

The Reincarnation of Blind Tom

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The Reincarnation of Blind Tom

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