Spirits in Complexity – Final Symposium

Two days of talks, performances and open discussion close the Spirits in Complexity artistic research project, circling two questions:

First, how—and whether—AI can be used in music both responsibly and in artistically interesting ways.

Second, how we might understand, and put to work, the personal, seemingly ensouled bonds we form with our technologies—the making of kin with experimental music systems.

The two questions overlap in ways that are as productive as they are faintly unsavoury, and that overlap is where we want to dig deeper.

Day 1 – September 30th, 2026
Welcome / Workshop 10:00–12:00
➔ Bankettsaal, mdw campus building S

Words of welcome (Rector of mdw Ulrike Sych, Head of Research Support Therese Kaufmann, Project head Thomas Grill)

Angélica Castelló / Lorena Moreno Vera / Miriam Jochmann — Experimental Laboratory: Totems – The Infinite Sadness of Small Obsolete Machines

Talks 14:00–18:00
➔ Bankettsaal, mdw campus building S

Ivar Roban Križić — Memory Structures 0.2

Paul Feigelfeld — Séance Technology Studies: Operation Mindfuck, Optimal Brain Damage, and the Black Arts of the Black Box

Carl Michael von Hausswolff — Electronic Voice Phenomena: methods and results

M. Beatrice Fazi — Cave Machines: On the Platonic Representation Hypothesis

Concert 19:30–21:30
➔ Klangtheater, mdw campus building V “Future Art Lab”

Billy Roisz + Miriam Jochmann — Lunar Dust

Carl Michael von Hausswolff — Lament (Helsinki)

Day 2 – October 1st, 2026
Talks 10:00–13:00
➔ Bankettsaal, mdw campus building S

Christian Grüny — The Ghost of Electricity

André Holzapfel — Adopting, Resisting, or Both? Artists’ Relations with Creative AI

TBA

Discussion 15:00–18:00
➔ spiel|mach|t|raum, mdw campus building S, 2nd floor

Concert 19:30–21:30
➔ Klangtheater, mdw campus building V “Future Art Lab”

Angélica Castelló / Thomas Grill — Totem Space

Augustė Vickunaitė — TBA

Marco Döttlinger / Patrik Lechner — TBA