In this workshop Paulo de Assis will introduce to the MetamusicX research cluster at Orpheus Institute and a recent publication that he co-edited with Adam Łukawski co-edited (“Decentralised Music: Exploring Blockchain for Artistic Research”, CRC Press,Taylor & Francis, 2024). The book includes contributions from leading researchers in music, arts, and technology offering a thorough examination of the potential of blockchain technology to transform musical practices. Moving beyond blockchain’s financial applications, it presents various perspectives on how this technology plays an important role in a creative, conceptual, and philosophical rethinking of the current modes of artistic creation. It is an essential reading for artists, musicians, researchers, and policymakers curious to know more about the implications of blockchain for the future of music. More than an academic exploration, it is a call to the artistic community to critically engage with blockchain technology and its consequences for the creative practice of music. In this workshop we will also explore research and writing methods with or without AI.

Paulo de Assis (b. 1969) is an artist-researcher in music, pianist, experimental performer, and musicologist based in Belgium. He is a Senior Research Fellow at the Orpheus Institute in Ghent, where he leads a research group on experimental creative practices at the intersection of musicology, composition, performance, AI & blockchain, and contemporary philosophy. He has directed a European Research Council project on 'experimental performance practices' and is currently president of the Evaluation Panel Arts, Design and Architecture of the Swiss National Foundation. He has worked as panel member at the European Research Council (Panel Consolidator Grant), and as evaluator for the Norwegian Research Council, the Israel Science Foundation, Québec Research Fonds, ANPPOM (Brazil), and the Kone Foundation in Finland. After studies in Germany and Italy, he has held academic positions in Lisbon, Toulouse and Madrid. In addition to his artistic practice, De Assis has published extensively, including the monograph Logic of Experimentation (2018) and several articles on "hypermusic", "music 2.0", and "posthuman music". His most recent publication is the edited volume Decentralized Music. Exploring Blockchain for Artistic Research (2024).