Habits and algorithms: Reconsidering music technology

In thinking about music as a set of narrative frames within a technological setting, and in the context of recent advances in AI that allow the decomposition and generation of musical corpora, the inadequacy of traditional representations of both music and the technologies associated with music become apparent. Taking the Pragmatist view, in which living selves present as bundles of habit (James, Dewey), and acknowledging both the contributions of habit to 4E Cognition and the social implications of this view developed by Bourdieu in his notion of the habitus, this paper considers the current situation of technology, the notion of habit in relation to specific technological elements, and the ways in which orientation and attachment frame the narrative forces that shape and are shaped by musical experience in order to interrogate new methods of habit formation and creative process evident within contemporary digital art practices. Rather than suggesting solutions to perceived problems, the paper sets out a conceptual frame as a ground for further investigation and critique.