The Uncanny Muse
Music, Art, and Machines from Automata to AI
Published on 4. February 2025
Book
Hardback
304 pages
978-0-393-54083-3 (ISBN)
Description
What does it mean to be human in a world where machines, too, can be artists? The Uncanny Muse explores the history of automation in the arts and delves into one of the most momentous and controversial aspects of AI: artificial creativity. The adoption of technology and machinery has long transformed the world, but as the potential for artificial intelligence expands, David Hajdu examines the new, increasingly urgent questions about technology's role in culture.
From the life-size mechanical doll that made headlines in Victorian London to the doll's modern AI-pop star counterpart, Hajdu traces the fascinating, varied ways in which inventors and artists have sought to emulate mental processes and mechanise creative production. For decades, machines and artists have engaged in expressing the human condition-along with the condition of living with machines-through player pianos, broadcasting technology, electric organs, digital movie effects, synthesisers and motion capture. By communicating and informing human knowledge, the machines have exerted considerable influence on the history of art-and often more influence than humans have been willing to recognise. As Hajdu proclaims: "before machine learning, there was machine teaching".
With thoughtful, wide-ranging and surprising turns from Berry Gordy and George Harrison to Andy Warhol and Stevie Wonder, David Hajdu takes a novel and contrarian approach: he sees how machines through the ages have enabled creativity, not stifled it-and The Uncanny Muse sees no reason why this shouldn't be the case with AI today.
From the life-size mechanical doll that made headlines in Victorian London to the doll's modern AI-pop star counterpart, Hajdu traces the fascinating, varied ways in which inventors and artists have sought to emulate mental processes and mechanise creative production. For decades, machines and artists have engaged in expressing the human condition-along with the condition of living with machines-through player pianos, broadcasting technology, electric organs, digital movie effects, synthesisers and motion capture. By communicating and informing human knowledge, the machines have exerted considerable influence on the history of art-and often more influence than humans have been willing to recognise. As Hajdu proclaims: "before machine learning, there was machine teaching".
With thoughtful, wide-ranging and surprising turns from Berry Gordy and George Harrison to Andy Warhol and Stevie Wonder, David Hajdu takes a novel and contrarian approach: he sees how machines through the ages have enabled creativity, not stifled it-and The Uncanny Muse sees no reason why this shouldn't be the case with AI today.
Reviews / Votes
"Compelling... [Hajdu's] story connects many unexpected people and things" -- Aaron Peck - The Times Literary Supplement "Fabulous and stimulating. We humans have always had a deep fascination with mechanical objects and an equally deep urge to create art. David Hajdu skillfully brings these two strands together in a work of elegant synthesis, revealing a deep understanding of what makes us and our machines tick and our art sing." -- Daniel J. Levitin, The New York Times best-selling author of This Is Your Brain on Music and I Heard There Was a Secret Chord "Into a moment when AI's troubling role in the present and future of artistic creation rules the discourse, David Hajdu's The Uncanny Muse brings an exciting and essential sense of history, perspective, and boundless curiosity. This constantly surprising exploration of 150 years of boundary-pushing and limit-testing innovations in the realm of who, or what, can make art reframes the discussion in a vital and fascinating way." -- Mark Harris, The New York Times best-selling author of Mike Nichols: A Life "Are song-making algorithms only the latest in a long series of musical amanuenses? Or is generative AI a new kind of musical synthesizer-a synthesizer of the human creator? The Uncanny Muse offers a timely, richly informative, and beautifully written inquiry into the origins of 'computational creativity,' framed in the historical context of human creativity and our many mechanical muses." -- John Seabrook, author of The Song Machine: Inside the Hit Factory "[Hajdu's] whirlwind tour through nearly 150 years of cultural history is both pacy and brimming with detail" -- Nadia Beard - Financial TimesMore details
Language
English
Place of publication
New York
United States
Illustrations
23 black-and-white images
Dimensions
Height: 235 mm
Width: 160 mm
Thickness: 30 mm
Weight
524 gr
ISBN-13
978-0-393-54083-3 (9780393540833)
Copyright in bibliographic data and cover images is held by Nielsen Book Services Limited or by the publishers or by their respective licensors: all rights reserved.
Schweitzer Classification
Other editions
Additional editions
E-Book
02/2025
W. W. Norton & Company
€30.99
Available for download
Person
David Hajdu is the author of seven books, including Adrianne Geffel: A Fiction, and a three-time National Book Critics Circle Award finalist. A musician and composer, he is the music critic for the Nation and a journalism professor at Columbia University. He lives in New York City.