<p>My solo practice embraces the unstable nature of improvisation in software and in music. I aim to examine the agency that improvisation can provide in the context of creative software and performance. I build custom software that acts both as an instrument and collaborator which I perform alongside with a combination of digital hardware and traditional musical instruments. Through the employment of these tools I challenge my ingrained jazz improvisational training, and examine creative relationships we can have with machines.</p>
<p>My improvisations to date have included hacking MIDI controllers and playing with audio analysis. Such approaches deconstruct my traditional musical training on the saxophone as I find myself attempting to embody routines as defined by software. It is either the programming of my years of formal music training, or a conceived imposition by the "perfection" of technology that makes me question my agency, and even my role as an interactor.</p>
<p>My performance practice is coupled with research that takes many other forms, where I engage in discussion around agencies a wider adoption of improvisation could provide. Building these instruments is an extension of my improvisational method, which acts as a form of liberation against the standardisation of both musical practices and software development. By employing improvisation towards the development of my tools, I expose the agencies that it might afford us in realms outside of creative practices, and how they might be used to combat outdated structures of hierarchy and value.</p>
<p>All of the code is freely accessible on my git repository here : <ahref="https://git.suroh.tk">git.suroh.tk</a>.</p>
