May 12th 2026, Musikpark Mannheim
L’art pour l’art or l’art pour l’algo?
That was one of the hot debates at the Creative Futures Forum, organized by the Cluster Creative Economy in Mannheim (moderator: Dr. Matthias Rauch). A great mix of expertise and perspectives:
Dr. Dorothea Winter shared scientific research about the impact AI has on creativity. She firmly stated that while AI can succeed in the mediocre, it does not have the capability to create something truly transformative and new. She took a clear humanistic perspective here, fitting well to our own core beliefs:
Artistic creation is a profoundly human act.
Dr. Matthias Röder on the other side shared insights from his own AI projects in music, like letting AI completing Beethoven’s 10th Symphony or his current work on the Mozart Junior project. He clearly says: „Within 3-5 years, we’ll have original AI artists who are competing with human artists.“
A point we’d like to discuss more deeply: what is actually an ‚original AI artist‘, how can it be independent from the humans who created it?
Clair Bötschi presented a Stuttgart based art competition (You-Transfer) where the jury is completely implemented as an AI algorithm. The 2026 version of the competition will even require artists to submit a work of art along with an AI agent which then will debate with the other submissions who the winner of the competition will be.
While this kind of competition is a very interesting piece of art itself and immediately creates a discourse about fairness, decision making, and more (art needs to create discourse and disagreement!), I’m concerned that this is actually devaluing the (human) art submitted to the competition – the focus is automatically more on the competition than on the winner.
At &ai, we’ll be providing grants to people working on and with AI in music and art in a responsible and conscious way. I am certainly not considering letting AI be the jury who decides on the grants.
I clearly put l‘art pour l’art above l’art pour l’algo.
The day was rounded with two workshops:
- Benjamin Jantzen created a video by using audience keywords and gave us deep insights into his creation process
- Björn Tillmann showed how he uses the neural audio tool R.A.V.E for sound design work in a highly considerate way, using open source software run on local machines, trained only on material that he provided himself.
For our mission to promote ethical use of AI in music and arts, this was a very insightful and rewarding day. Lots of angles to discuss and take into account when we prepare to select our first works that we will be funding.
Connect with us to continue the discussion or to share projects and undertakings that you would see a good fit to &ai!
(posted by Joachim, Chair of &ai)