The international conference Music and Machines explores how music, computational thinking, and new technologies have reshaped musical creation, performance, and listening throughout the 20th and 21st centuries. These dynamics also open new perspectives for understanding musical practices across different historical periods.
Since the mid-18th century, musical discourse has often drawn sharp lines between human expression and mechanical imitation. Yet technologies and artifacts have continually blurred this divide, redefining the very act of making music. From early automata to sound technologies of the 20th century and today’s AI systems, machines have played a central role in musical creativity.

Algorithmic thinking has long influenced composition, and today algorithms generate dynamic, interactive music beyond traditional forms. As creative roles evolve, computational tools — both hardware and software — support new artistic practices: artificial, assisted, transmedial, and virtual. These digital extensions reshape embodiment, presence, and musical subjectivity (“Blurring Humans”).

Artificial intelligence is among the most transformative developments. Beyond technical innovation, AI is increasingly seen as an aesthetic and empathic agent (“Harmonious AI”), capable of emotionally resonant expression. These shifts affect not only musical aesthetics, but also the ontology of the work, and the relationships between body, voice, memory, and machine. At the same time, digital platforms and responsive systems are reshaping the economies of music production and distribution, opening new forms of immersive and affective interactivity. In parallel, digital and spatial technologies are changing cultural and creative economies. Practice-based research shows how these tools can foster innovation in production, dissemination, and audience engagement (“Markets in Motion”).

The conference invites reflection on how emerging technologies and AI may continue to transform music — in its forms, spaces, and social roles. Imagining the future of music means exploring new sonic frontiers and raising fundamental questions about musical experience. The primary focus is on contemporary music, but the conference also invites critical perspectives on how emerging technologies may inform the study of historical musical practices.