Visiting Researcher
Biography:
David Piazza is a composer and performer of electroacoustic music based in Montréal. Through practice-based research, he investigates the relationships between technics, experimental music, and machine learning, focusing on questions of musical agency in composition mediated by learned computational systems. He is completing a Master’s degree in electroacoustic composition at Université de Montréal.
Research Statement:
My research investigates musical agency in composition mediated by technological systems, particularly those which problematize autonomy and musical expression through machine learning. Where traditional instruments offer performers a immediate coupling between gesture and sound, contemporary music technics often embed learned structures in high-dimensional parameter spaces that resist direct perceptual access. This opacity transforms the composer’s relationship to their material: rather than shaping sound through well-understood causal chains, the composer enters into a negotiation with a system whose behaviour is at once responsive and unknowable.
I approach this question through practice-based research, developing compositional methodologies for working with generative audio and control models, and situating these practices within a broader theoretical framework drawn from the philosophy of technics, cybernetics, and the acousmatic tradition. My work asks how compositional intentionality is redistributed when creative decisions are mediated by systems that embody their own learned biases and affordances, and what new forms of musical thought emerge from this entanglement.
Research Areas:
Contacts:
- Email: david.piazza@umontreal.ca