Call | Algorithmic Audiovisualities: Music and Media in the Age of AI

International conference: Algorithmic Audiovisualities: Music and Media in the Age of AI

Deadline for Abstracts: May 11, 2025

With advancements in Artificial Intelligence (AI), a wide range of musical and media forms — from live concerts with video projections, holograms, robotics, and mixed reality to multimedia installations, opera, theatre, video games, music videos, cinema, television, advertising, and documentary—are undergoing significant transformations. These changes affect live, streamed, and recorded performances, music production and reception platforms with algorithmic systems, and an array of software for sound, music, and video, all increasingly mediated by AI. This conference seeks to explore how AI technologies are reshaping the ways we create, interact with, and consume audiovisual forms and objects across local, transnational, and digital landscapes, while redefining values and practices in the cultural and creative industries. Together, these transformations contribute to what we term “algorithmic audiovisualities” — a phenomenon that encompasses the shifting, technology-driven modalities of contemporary audiovisual expression.

Throughout music history, technological advances have sparked reactions ranging from optimism to scepticism, highlighting a broad spectrum of perspectives on their impact. Research shows that AI’s growing integration reshapes creativity and agency while raising concerns about potential cultural “homogenization” and “automation” (Airoldi 2022), with fears that data-driven processes could reinforce aesthetic norms at the expense of “uniqueness” and “authenticity”. However, AI has also enriched musical creativity through human-machine interaction (Cole 2020; Auner 2003), enabled software that transforms production techniques and methods (Attias 2013; Prior 2009), shaped audience accessibility, tastes, and preferences (Goldschmitt and Seaver 2019), and directly influenced audiovisual and musical practices and formats (Malhado 2024; Gopinath and Stanyek 2019; Trippet 2019).

These and other transformations in music have profoundly impacted the audiovisual industries, which, with AI integration, are now adapting to numerous possibilities and challenges. This conference focuses specifically on two central aspects: (1) Creative Potential and Content Personalization, and (2) Labor Market Impact. While academic studies sometimes adopt a binary view—seeing technological advances as inherently beneficial or detrimental—this conference encourages a departure from such reductive interpretations. Instead, we aim to situate these discourses within a genealogy that captures and understands the nuanced roles these innovations play in shaping cultural practices and social dynamics. By considering the different degrees of agency that technologies like AI can embody (e.g., Airoldi 2022; Latour 2009), we seek to examine the complex, often overlapping ways in which AI permeates various devices, environments, communities, and creative expressions involving sound and music. This approach enables us to map a more intricate landscape, avoiding clear-cut judgments, and instead engaging with the multivalent realities that AI brings to contemporary audiovisual cultures.

We aim to create an interdisciplinary and inclusive platform for investigating AI’s sociocultural impact, centring on algorithmic audiovisualities and exploring the multiple ways sound, music, and image are created, experienced, and interconnected. Contributors are encouraged to analyse and critique the multidimensional nature of AI-mediated cultural phenomena, emphasizing the role of sound and music in these new audiovisual forms.

TOPICS OF INTEREST

1. Applications of AI in Audiovisual Production

Relationships between AI-generated music and human-produced images
AI-generated images paired with human-composed or curated music
Integrated creation of music and image using AI systems
AI in editing and post-production, with an emphasis on music-image synchronization
Similarities and differences in AI usage across various audiovisual formats: video games, music videos, short and feature films, television and streaming series, digital content, advertising, documentaries, and more.

2. Algorithmic Dissemination and Curation of Audiovisual Content

Algorithmic recommendation and filtering of audiovisual content on digital platforms
Algorithmic intervention in library music practices

3. Reception and Consumption of AI-Mediated Audiovisual Content

Social dynamics in online communities centred around AI-produced audiovisual content
Shifts in digital consumption patterns influenced by algorithmic features of digital platforms
AI-driven fandom and community engagement around audiovisuals

4. Live Concerts and Performances Using AI

Live concerts integrating video projections, holograms, robotics, and mixed reality elements
Performances where AI mediates real-time audiovisual interactions on stage
AI in live sound and image manipulation

5. Dramatic and Theatrical Productions with AI Elements

AI in opera, music theatre, and other staged multimedia performances using recorded or streamed video elements

6. AI in Multimedia Installations and Performance Art

Uses of AI in the production of installations and performances with audiovisual elements
Reception studies of AI-driven interactive and multisensory experiences within multimedia settings

7. AI Tools in Audiovisual Creation

Specific AI software employed in the creation of audiovisual content
Technical challenges and innovations in creating and synchronizing music and image using AI
Comparative analysis of AI tools versus traditional production methods in audiovisuals

8. Transformations within the Audiovisual Industries

Impact of AI on workflows and changes in professional roles within audio production for audiovisual media
Opportunities and challenges AI presents for audio professionals in cultural and creative industries
Redistribution of creative power among producers, creators, and consumers through AI

9. Musical Creativity and AI in Audiovisual Contexts

Human-machine collaboration in sonic and musical composition for audiovisual projects
Tensions between automation and authorship in AI-mediated music production

10. Narrativity and Representation of AI in Audiovisual Media

Depiction of music in relation to robotics, mixed realities, generative AI, and other algorithmic technologies in audiovisual media
The role of AI as both inspiration and thematic element in audiovisual storytelling
Audience reception and interpretive frameworks surrounding AI in music and image

11. Local, Transnational, and Global Perspectives on AI

Local applications of AI in sound and music with global reach
Comparative studies of AI usage across different audiovisual circuits and cultural contexts

12. Gender Studies, Sexuality, and AI

Reinforcement or transformation of gender and sexuality audiovisual stereotypes through AI, particularly in music and image
AI’s impact on media consumers of digital platforms, with a focus on their gendered and social performances

The conference will be held virtually and broadcast via Zoom. All presentations will take place online, ensuring broad accessibility and participation. Selected speakers will be notified and asked to confirm their participation before proceeding with registration. To ensure a wider access to the conference, there will be no registration fees.

To encourage a broad and diverse approach, we invite proposals in five distinct formats:

Thematic Papers
Case Study Papers
Roundtable Discussions
Interviews with Professionals from Music and Audiovisual Industries
Workshops

Read the instructions carefully, as each format has its own specifications. To submit a proposal, please send an email attachment (.doc or .docx, not .pdf) to ccesem@fcsh.unl.pt with the following details:

Thematic Paper/Case Paper

Title
Full name and institutional affiliation
Abstract (max. 300 words)
Short biography (max. 150 words)

Roundtable Discussion (5 participants max)

Title
Full name and institutional affiliation of every participant (speakers and one chair)
Abstract (max. 300 words)
Short biography of every participant (max. 150 words each)

Interviews

Title
Full name and institutional affiliation of interviewer
Abstract (max. 300 words)
Short biography of interviewer and interviewee (max. 150 words each)

Workshops

Title
Full name and institutional affiliation
Abstract (max. 300 words)
Duration (1h max)
Short biography (max. 150 words)

A select number of contributions will be chosen for inclusion in an innovative scientific publication focused on the intersection of music, audiovisual media, and artificial intelligence. Further details about this publication will be provided later.

Thank you in advance for your proposals, we look forward to reading them! If you have any questions about the conference, please contact: ccesem@fcsh.unl.pt

Conference Direction Board:

André Malhado (Chair)

Júlia Durand (co-Chair)

Vinícius de Aguiar (co-Chair)

Coordination: CysMus – Sound and Music in Digital and Audiovisual Media Studies Team (Portugal), in partnership with CULTPOP – Cultura Pop, Comunicação e Tecnologias (Brazil)

With the support of: SociMus (Advanced Studies in the Sociology of Music Cluster); GTCC (Research Group for the Study of Music, Critical Theory and Communication); CESEM (Centre for the Study of the Sociology and Aesthetics of Music); IN2PAST (Associate Laboratory for Research and Innovation in Heritage, Arts, Sustainability and Territory); NOVA FSCH (NOVA University of Lisbon – School of Social Sciences and Humanities); FCT (Foundation for Science and Technology)

Source and more information: https://cysmus-cesem.weebly.com/