ABSTRACT: Implicitly or explicitly, Cybernetics plays a role in works of Experimental, Ambient, and Generative music. This talk will introduce Amergent music, a genre that draws from these musical traditions and creates a third-order cybernetic stipulation in works of technoetic and media art. Drawing on the work of Maturana & Varela and Martin Heidegger, Amergent music establishes a new relationship between listeners, generative systems, and the musically mediated environment that is created in the course of interaction, play, and presence. Some recent projects, including Londontown and Dérive Entre Mille Sons, will be used as examples of this approach in the music of virtual worlds and mobile device applications.

BIO: Norbert Herber is a Lecturer at Indiana University Bloomington in the Department of Telecommunications. He is a musician and a sound artist whose research explores the relationship between people and sound within mediated environments. Norbert’s artistic work can be described as Amergent music—an innovative ambient style that uses generative systems to facilitate continuous, musical behavior. Using this approach he is focused on creating sound and music in digital environments for art, entertainment, and communications. Norbert is a Ph.D. candidate in the Planetary Collegium through the University of Plymouth, UK where he studies under the supervision of John Matthias, Roy Ascott, and Brian Eno. His works have been performed/exhibited in Europe, Asia, South America, and in the United States.