Tod Machover, a composer and professor at the MIT Media Lab, wants to do for musical performance what AI guru Marvin Minsky did for cognitive science blow it wide open.
In cognitive science, "Minsky showed that there are a lot of relatively dumb 'agents' that work together" to coordinate thinking, explains Machover. Machover is using that idea to create Brain Opera, a musical experience in which audience members instead of a single composer help drive the sound. Sensors monitor the audience's movement and adjust a computerized song's rhythm and tempo in response. Performances run July 23 through August 3 at New York's Lincoln Center or on the Web at brainop.media.mit.edu.
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