Latent Russando is a semi-generative compositional framework written in Pure Data dedicated to exploring musical qualities in working with generative neural nets for audio, conceived both as hybrid instruments and as autonomous actors.
Practices from generative music and algorithmic composition are used as mediators between human performer and the generative abilities of the neural nets, displacing and circumventing concepts of authorship and genius by empowering multiple independent agents in an improvisation-driven, co-creative process.
The work is based on Russando. Serenade for six German Sirens, op. 43 by Hallgrímur Vilhjálmsson, a heteronym of conceptual artist Georg Joachim Schmitt. The original piece was composed in 2008 and premiered in the context of the (also fictional) art exhibition cologne contemporary — international art biennale 08 at Asbach-Uralt Werke in Rüdesheim. It is a three-part composition of approx. 33 minutes in length, in which six German emergency and police sirens are alternately sounded together or alone. In consultation with the creator, I trained models based on two neural net architectures (RAVE, vschaos2, both courtesy of IRCAM, Paris) on the original piece.
Output examples
For Soundcinema Düsseldorf 2025, I expanded the Latent Russando framework into a multichannel version employing 8 models with their outputs distributed over 7 channels. At the festival, I presented Nebuloso that stands exemplary for a potentially infinite number of musical works that can be generated with the framework; it is the output of a joint creative act of human and artificial agents. With this, both the conceptual genesis of Russando with its distributed or fictionalized authorship is reflected as well as the interplay of control and autonomy in a process that deflects claims of unique authorship and concepts of solitary genius.