A Conversation with Brian Eno: Creativity Through Machine Intelligence

At the Cannes Lions International Festival of Creativity, Dentsu Lab Tokyo held its first-ever seminar since its establishment. Moderator Koichi Yamamoto of Dentsu Inc. and Togo Kida of Dentsu Lab Tokyo took the stage. Guest: Brian Eno (musician/composer/producer/artist/writer/contemporary thinker), a pioneer in electronic music. Discussing the collaborative project between Dentsu Lab Tokyo and Eno, they delve into creativity and technology.

Yamamoto: As a pioneering artist, Eno has pioneered, conceptualized, and advanced the genre of "ambient music."

As a producer, he has also opened new horizons for artists like U2 and Coldplay. Furthermore, as a visual artist, he creates highly experimental and unique visual installations. For example, his work "77 Million Paintings" has been exhibited worldwide. Today, we'd like to hear about the relationship between creativity and technology.

We'll also discuss the project Dentsu Lab Tokyo is currently undertaking for the title track of your latest album, "The Ship."

 

The word "technology"

Yamamoto: I imagine technology is very important to you, Mr. Eno. How do you see the role of technology in your own work?

Eno: First, I'd like to talk about the word "technology." I have a friend who's an engineer, and he says, "Technology is just a name for things that don't work very well yet (laughs)." Because, actually, we use technology all the time. A violin is technology, and a grand piano is incredibly complex technology. But because it works well, we forget it's "technology" and just incorporate it into our lives. (Pointing to his glasses) Even these are technology. Everything is technology, everywhere. Without technology, humans are incredibly insignificant creatures.

I started music because of technology. I still can't play any instrument very well (laughs). But in the late 1960s, when I was in my late teens and early twenties, technology came in and opened up so many possibilities. At the time, I was studying painting and had been in art school for five years. Suddenly, the existence of recording studios made me see music as a new way of painting. When you paint, you start by applying one color, then add another, then scrape that color away... and repeat. That's how a painting is created, layer by layer over time.

In contrast, music had always been recorded all at once. The band would gather together and play simultaneously. That was recording. But with the advent of multitrack recording, it suddenly became possible to create music using a painterly technique. Just as you layer colors to create a painting, you could layer sounds to create a recording. That's now the mainstream approach to recording. Almost no one does it the old-fashioned way anymore, standing in front of a microphone and playing all at once.

In other words, the technology of multitrack recording liberated me, and it was an enormous advancement. It meant that even people who hadn't grown up in a musical environment or received formal musical training could now use music as a medium for expression. That's why new talent started pouring in from other fields.

To understand the role technology plays in music, let's consider a simple tool: the microphone. Originally invented to amplify the voice, the microphone changed everything.

The microphone's arrival allowed people to sing in quieter voices. You no longer needed operatic projection for your voice to reach everyone in the room. You could sing softly. In other words, most modern singing techniques exist largely because of the microphone. Its arrival enabled people to fully utilize the potential of the human voice.

Before that, this wasn't possible in concert halls. Unless you were performing alone, as long as an orchestra was present, opera-style singing was the only way to project your voice. Technology is always invented for a reason.

And when new technology is invented, new uses for it immediately emerge. The moment technology is born, suddenly new possibilities arise that no one had ever thought of before. The history of music is a repetition of this.

 

Building Methods

Yamamoto: Regarding the role of technology in art, has your own perspective changed since you started using tape recorders and synthesizers, Eno?

Eno: Not really. I've always worked in close connection with technology. I simply like technology itself. When you engage with new technology, it feels like stepping into a newly opened territory. No one else is there yet. The interesting thing about technology is that it keeps getting more intelligent.

About 35 years ago, I started exploring the idea of "generative music." It's the concept of not writing down every note and element that makes up a piece of music, like a symphony, but instead building a technical system and letting that system create the music.

What I was doing was building systems that generate sound. You set rules for the system. You feed it certain inputs and run it. Then it produces music I've never heard before.

This differs from the traditional concept of a composer, right? A traditional composer has a musical concept in their head and shapes it into form somehow. In contrast, what I was doing was having a concept about a method for creating music, building that method, and having it create music. I decided to call this "Generative Music." This term is mainly applied in the field of games.

Much of today's game music is generative. It's not the traditional approach of playing this loop for this scene and another loop for that scene.

Several years ago, I worked on the music for the game "Spore," by William Wright. Instead of playing pre-recorded sounds, we embedded a small synthesizer within the game itself. This synthesizer creates music based on certain conditions.

Rules applied based on events within the game. But even if you returned to the same scene later in the game, the music would be similar, yet never exactly the same.

Yamamoto: It's like an automatic soundtrack generator.

Eno: Exactly. An automatic soundtrack generator. It made my life a lot easier (laughs).

 

The Ship Concept

Yamamoto: Next, could you tell us what prompted the start of the "The Ship" project, and why Dentsu Lab Tokyo was commissioned to create the music video?

Eno: About two and a half years ago, I was invited to Fylkingen. It's the world's oldest electronic music studio, located in Stockholm. They have a multi-channel reproduction system, and the idea was to create a work utilizing that. There are tons of amplifiers and speakers. It's a room about the same size as this venue, and probably about the same height too.

There, I started creating an instrumental piece. Music intended for a three-dimensional installation. Sound coming from all directions. During that process, I realized I could sing the lowest note in that piece. One of the few perks of getting older (laughs). Your voice just keeps getting lower.

I became completely captivated by that. One reason was simply being able to produce such a low voice. Before, I absolutely couldn't hit even a low C. The other was being able to use my voice in this context. Initially, I envisioned an abstract sonic experience. But while singing in this low register, the words "Roll, Roll" emerged. The piece evoked images of the sea and such. There was movement. Not rhythm per se, but a wave-like sensation. I thought, "This is being on a ship. On something like a ship."

Then, gradually, words surfaced. It felt like the sound itself drew out the words it depicted. That became the song "The Ship."

Meanwhile, I'd long held a special interest in World War I and the sinking of the Titanic, devouring books on the subjects. As you know, the Titanic sank in April 1912. That was two years before World War I broke out. For me, these two events are strongly linked. The Titanic symbolized, you could say, the extravagance of the Victorian era. That feeling of "This ship cannot sink. We understand how everything works. Nothing can stop us." Yet it struck an iceberg and sank. And World War I began with exactly the same spirit. The spirit of "All the major problems have been solved."
That, in fact, was the prevailing sentiment at the dawn of the 20th century.

"All the major problems have been solved." In 1905, a physicist named Ernest Rutherford declared, "As far as I can see, there are no major problems left in physics." Yet that very same year, Einstein published three papers that would shake the world, beginning with his theory of relativity.

So, this is a human tendency. You sit back in your chair, maybe rubbing your hands, and think, "Well, we've solved everything. We understand how things work." That's the precursor to everything collapsing.

Another example: At the beginning of this century, in 2000, the U.S. government published a document titled "The Grand Strategy of the United States." It begins with these words: "As we approach the end of the 20th century, it has become clear that the only political system that works..." It then goes on to discuss American democratic capitalism, but again, the tone is one of "all problems have been solved."

Shortly before that, Francis Fukuyama wrote his book "The End of History." This too promoted the idea that "there's no need to think anymore; democracy and capitalism are the future. The rest of the world will gradually adopt them, and ultimately everything will work out." Then, two years later—no, just one year later—9/11 happened. Two years after that, the Iraq War broke out. Everything descended into utter chaos. The same pattern repeated itself. The arrogance of believing "all problems have been solved."

And of course, it collapsed, descending into paranoia. Paranoia is the inevitable companion of arrogance. Because the defining characteristic of immense power is immense paranoia. And suddenly, America realized how incredibly vulnerable it was. It started declaring terrorists lurked in every crack and crevice. This gave rise to the greatest industry of the 21st century: the security boom. Security is the most intrusive thing in our lives.

In a way, this song was born from contemplating this echo effect (meaning history repeats itself). It seems the same thing happens every hundred years: just when you think all problems are solved, you realize they weren't.

Yamamoto: I see. So why did you reach out to Dentsu Lab Tokyo? It was incredibly honorable, but honestly, I was very surprised.

Eno: Thank you. I'm interested in what new technology can do. Technology always enables things no one ever imagined. It's invented for a specific purpose, but it inevitably enables so much more. That's why I've been interested in artificial intelligence for quite some time. I have several friends working in that field. I'm not afraid of artificial intelligence itself. What I fear are the people currently controlling it (laughs). Like the NSA. AI itself isn't the enemy. The enemy is the people who hold it now. Anyway, I believe AI holds immense potential.

Another thing is, while I have huge expectations for the potential of AI and new technologies, I'm utterly fed up with the current state of music videos. I just don't want to do them anymore. So I wanted to ask, "Isn't there another way?"

 

Project Concept and the Social Position of Machine Intelligence

Yamamoto: Now, let's hear from a technical perspective how you interpreted the concept of "The Ship" that Eno just described. ………

※Continued in the next part