Extended Improvisation: Ensemble 3 Debuts at the SAR Forum 2025 in Porto
In May 2025, a live collaboration between musicians and machine took place in the city of Porto. Jonas Sjøvaag, a percussionist and PhD Fellow in CreaTeME, presented the live debut of his trio Ensemble 3 at the Society for Artistic Research (SAR) Forum, held at the Faculty of Fine Arts, University of Porto.
A different kind of trio
Over 230 artistic researchers from across Europe attended the performance and had the chance to witness Sjøvaag’s explorations on the intersection of human improvisation and machine listening. Ensemble 3 offered a live improvisational collaboration between Sjøvaag on drums, double bassist António Augusto Aguiar, and a computer-driven generative musical system. The machine functioned as an active participant in the trio, analyzing and generating sound in real time, based on the musical context.
Sjøvaag explained the essence of his project: “This project challenges the conventional distinctions between performer, instrument, and tool. In this iteration, the system kickstarted a live dialogue between the performers, while also providing space for musical negotiation. The underlying idea is to continue evolving the system so that its responses become increasingly nuanced, adaptable, and creatively stimulating – while remaining grounded in my own criteria for what constitutes musically meaningful output.”
LIVE PERFORMANCE
The live performance in Porto allowed Sjøvaag to test and refine his research on computer-mediated improvisation in a live setting. Although he plans to continue developing the system, he remains cautious about labeling it as AI-assisted. “I hesitate to call the system AI-assisted, mainly because I no longer appreciate the term,” he remarked, adding that future iterations might incorporate lightweight, locally run Language Model (LLM) variants to enhance the system’s analytical and generative capabilities in response to audio input.
VISUALS
Alongside the concert, a video work was shown. Sjøvaag presented a prototype video work – a 30-minute pre-rendered video filmed from a plane window during a flight from Oslo to Bergen, which was processed using TouchDesigner and edited in Adobe Premiere. This visual piece was integrated into the musical performance, hinting at future developments in real-time multi-sensory responsiveness.
VIDEO FROM THE PERFORMANCE
Credits
Banner photo: Ulla Haveng