13 Ways of Looking at AI, Art & Music

The Media Lab's Opera of the Future group and AHA research program invite you to a special talk by Jennifer Walshe, Irish composer, performer, and professor of composition at the University of Oxford.

In this talk, Walshe explores the intersection of music, art, and artificial intelligence. Over the past decade, she has created a body of work that is by turns playful, anarchic, and thought-provoking—from training an AI on a bespoke dataset of her own vocal performances (ULTRACHUNK) to reimagining the early history of Western music using machine learning (A Late Anthology of Early Music, Vol. 1: Ancient to Renaissance).

Her long-form essay, "13 Ways of Looking at AI, Art & Music" (published by Unsound in 2024), offers a unique framework for considering AI-generated art, suggesting that we view such works from multiple perspectives—sometimes as fan fiction, sometimes as an energy drink, and much more.

Don’t miss this opportunity to hear from one of today’s most original and provocative voices in experimental music and AI art.

Free and open to the MIT community
Co-hosted by Opera of the Future and the AHA Research Program

This in-person event  will also be available via live stream (link to be shared soon; for more info, contact Clémence Taillandier).

About Jennifer Walshe

Jennifer Walshe was born in Dublin, Ireland in 1974. She studied composition with John Maxwell Geddes at the Royal Scottish Academy of Music and Drama, Kevin Volans in Dublin,  and graduated from Northwestern University, with a doctoral degree in composition in June 2002. She is currently professor of composition at the University of Oxford.

In addition to her activities as a professor and composer, Jennifer frequently performs as a vocalist, specializing in extended techniques. Jennifer is also active as an improviser, performing regularly with musicians in Europe and the US. Her new opera MARS premiered in Ireland in July 2025 and was recently featured in The New York Times.