Crowd-composition: exploring the qualities of collective creativity

Abstract

Crowd-composition is the practice of outsourcing a creative task to a crowd, leading to a new musical composition that is assembled and shaped by collective input. Crowdsourcing is a key stimulus. However, whilst crowdsourcing has become a commonplace and well-researched practice, crowd-composition itself remains largely unexplored. This project aimed to consolidate, add to and develop the field. Its central research concern was to investigate properties relating to participation, and in doing so asked:
• How can crowd-composition facilitate meaningful experiences for participants?
• How can crowd-composition lead to musical works or perspectives that are distinct from
sole agent composition?
This led to four original crowd-composition works, submitted as the portfolio component of this doctoral project, which are built on a process of experimentation that sought to explore these questions. The works utilised voting techniques as the primary mechanism for collective decision making. Analysis demonstrated the effectiveness of a number of particular elements, as well as insights into distinct outcomes of crowd-composition. A central finding was the importance of engaging and managing the attention of crowds, which was shown to be an essential factor in the success of the aforementioned works. To this end, the project led to a number of lessons to share for enhancing this aspect.

More information

Identifiers

Catalogue record

Export record