Innovate: Cyborg Musicality

Music-making machines have existed for centuries, but interacting with them in live performance poses new technical challenges and aesthetic questions about the locus of creativity and musical expression.

Speaker Bio: Patrick Flanagan serves as the token human in the cyborg percussion ensemble Jazari, which fuses African rhythms, algorithmic composition, computer music, and electro-mechanics into beat-driven steamfunk. Jazari has been lauded on tech blogs as “fully rockin'” (Boing Boing) and “utterly brilliant” (Create Digital Music) and was featured on NPR’s All Things Considered. Before he began soldering circuits together, Patrick studied composition at Columbia University and the University of Minnesota.

http://www.jazarimusic.com/about

In the spirit of ideas worth spreading, TED has created a program called TEDx. TEDx is a program of local, self-organized events that bring people together to share a TED-like experience. Our event is called TEDxGrandRapids, where x = independently organized TED event. At our TEDxGrandRapids event, TEDTalks video and live speakers will combine to spark deep discussion and connection in a small group. The TED Conference provides general guidance for the TEDx program, but individual TEDx events, including ours, are self-organized.