The Chessboard

In 1996, chess world champion and grandmaster Gary Kasparov faced off against IBM’s chess-playing supercomputer Deep Blue. Kasparov lost the first game (Feb. 10, 1996) but won the match. He became the first human to beat a computer at chess. In 1997, Kasparov faced Deep Blue again. He lost that match.

I’ve been thinking a lot about trends in electronic music, particularly the ways in which we envision humans and computers interacting with one another. With machine learning and the like becoming ever-present forces, it can be difficult to avoid techno-deterministic thought processes. We seem to always hope/think that the newest tech will lead us to the brightest future, the most expressive instrument, and the most “interactive” system. At the same time, some people choose to build DIY synths by hand, perhaps for reasons that challenge shiny technology, or perhaps for other reasons entirely. However, it seems as though these two completely different approaches to creative musical technology might actually be two ways of achieving the same goal: a meaningful connection between human and machine.

Chess has experienced a similar narrative. Computers enter the scene and change the game. They make us reconsider chess strategy as well as the different methods by which electronic systems can be imbued with human-ness and knowledge. These chess-playing robots require humans to change the way we think and reconsider how we interact with the world around us.

The Chessboard is a multi-oscillator synthesizer I built. It can be thrown into chaotic feedback, produce rhythmic percussive sounds, and drone on and on for hours. It can be played (quite expressively) by a human being, or it can be left alone, clicking and blooping through its own logic, never fully stable, always ready to move.

The board is old and used and portable.

The arrangement of the pieces is extracted from the final position of Kasparov’s first game against Deep Blue (this is not the complete final position). Kasparov resigned, but analysts insist that he could have drawn a stalemate.