Adaptive Walk on Fitness Soundscape

We propose a new IEC for musical works based on an adaptive walk on a fitness landscape of sounds. In this system, there is a virtual plane that represents the genetic space of possible musical works called fitness soundscape. The user stands on the soundscape, and hears the multiple sounds that correspond to one’s neighboring genotypes at the same time. These sounds come from different directions that correspond to the locations of their genotypes on the soundscape. By using the human abilities for localization and selective listening of sounds, the user can repeatedly walk toward the direction from which more favorite sounds come. This virtual environment can be realized by a home theater system with multiple speakers creating “surrounded sound”. We report on the basic concept of the system, a simple prototype for musical composition with several functional features for improvement of evolutionary search, and preliminary evaluations of the system.