Generative Music (1996)
Ideas
Brian Eno declared that music can write itself. Using algorithms, he created systems generating infinite, non-repeating landscapes. The author became a gardener, not an architect.
Full text
With the SSEYO Koan program, Brian Eno developed the idea of generative music. Instead of a finished track, he created a system of rules and probabilities. Every time it was launched on the listener's computer, the music was created anew.
It is 'music that writes itself.' It can sound infinitely without ever repeating. Eno compared it to creating a wind chime instrument: you construct the object, and the wind (the algorithm) plays the music. This anticipated modern neural networks and adaptive soundtracks in games.