Coming together: composition by negotiation

In this paper, we describe a software system that generates unique musical compositions in realtime, created by four autonomous multi-agents. Given no explicit musical data, agents explore their environment, building beliefs through interactions with other agents via messaging and listening (to both audio and/or MIDI data), generating goals, and executing plans. The artistic focus of Coming Together is the actual process of convergence, heard during performance (each of which usually lasts about ten minutes): the movement from random individualism to converged ensemble interaction. If convergence is successful, four additional agents are instantiated that exploit the emergent harmony and rhythm through brief, but beautiful melodic gestures. Once these agents have completed their work, or if the original "explorer" agents fail to converge, the system resets itself, and the process begins again.