The premiere of George Lewis's Blombos Playground combines human and AI keyboardists as SoVo, uniting Voyager (rule-based AI) and Somax (machine-learning-based AI).

The piece frames AI in music as a long-running collaboration between humans and machines, emphasizing performative and perceptual aspects rather than replacement and highlighting how ensemble playing blends human and artificial input.

Kanga leads the Cyborg Soloists research project at Royal Holloway University with a £1.4 million grant to explore AI and technology in music.

Kanga says playing with AI feels like inhabiting the minds of artificial improvisors, noting Somax mirrors his style while Voyager acts as a maverick improviser shaped by design.

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The performance emphasizes the visceral, onstage feel of human-AI duets, with audiences sometimes discerning AI from human players and other times hearing a seamless blend.

Lewis’s aim with Blombos Playground is to reveal new ways of thinking about improvisation, musical personality, and communication, underscoring that AI operates with artificial intelligence rather than human understanding.

Voyager, active since the 1980s, listens to human performers and can switch between accompaniment and soloing, displaying a distinct improvisational personality.

Blombos Playground uses MIDI keyboard input and multi-speaker spatialization to place Kanga and two AIs in a three-dimensional sound environment.

Somax is trained on Kanga’s improvisations by IRCAM and creates an avatar twin; together they form SoVo, integrating rule-based and ML-based AI improvisation.