Research project funded by VR
“MUSICAL ENTANGLEMENTS WITH ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE: POSTHUMANIST PERSPECTIVES ON CREATING, CONSUMING AND CONNECTING WITH AI MUSIC”
2025-2028. Researcher in a 3-year research project funded by the Swedish Research Council, conducted at KTH Royal Institute of Technology.
Abstract: In recent years, artificial intelligence (AI) has developed at a rapid pace, now entering the music sphere. These developments are driven by private corporations for the purpose of profit rather than public good, and within engineering circles for the sake of innovation. However, studies of the implications of AI music on human creativity and aesthetics have yet to be performed. The purpose of this project is to critically analyse how humans create, consume, and connect with each other through AI music. The aim is to develop the posthumanist concept of musical entanglements to understand how such music challenges conceptions of what it means to be human in the age of AI, and how these technologies affect how humans as artists, composers, and listeners, become entangled through AI music. Three studies formalise the concept of musical entanglements, implement it to study how humans become entangled through datasets and algorithms in AI voice models and deepfakes, and explore entanglements in commercial AI music services aimed at music listening and creation experiences. The project uses discourse analysis, music analysis, and ethnographic methods. It enables an analytical approach that reveals how experiences, emotions, and values around AI music bring forth new musical expressions and discourses, benefiting future research in the wider creative industry.
Postdoctoral Researcher in the ERC funded MUSAiC project
2023-2025. Postdoctoral Researcher in AI Music Studies at KTH Royal Institute of Technology. Ongoing projects that explore what it means to make music with AI, focusing on aspects such as networks, more-than-human agency and creativity; the tensions that appear between traditional music communities and AI music generative models; and ethnographic challenges of studying online AI music communities. 2-year postdoc position.
Research fellow of the Bernadotte Programme funded by the Royal Swedish Academy of Music
2023. “Vad kan musik göra för miljön? En studie över tre verk av nutida svenska tonsättare som genom musik och ekopoesi sätter miljö och klimat i fokus”. A project that studies contemporary Swedish art music that engages with the Anthropocene, post-anthropocentric perspectives, and relations between text and music from ecocritical positions. 125 000 SEK.
Postdoc position, the Baltic Sea Foundation (granted but declined by the applicant)
2023. “Music and Sustainability as Affective Assemblage: The Baltic Sea Festival and its Engagement with Scientific Research on Environmental Sustainability of the Baltic Sea Region”. 2-year postdoc position. 35 applicants, 5 granted projects of which this project was one. 2 970 000 SEK (declined by Elin Kanhov as she became a postdoc in the MUSAiC project at KTH).
Grants
2025-2028. VR (Vetenskapsrådet) grant for the project “Musical Entanglements with Artificial Intelligence: Posthumanist Perspectives on Creating, Consuming and Connecting with AI Music”, 3.5MSEK.
2024. Nominated for best doctoral thesis 2023 at Högskoleföreningen, Stockholm University.
2022. Stockholm University Donation Scholarships (dissertation), 20 000 SEK.
2019. The Royal Swedish Academy of Music (travel grant for Tokyo), 8 500 SEK.
2017. The Royal Swedish Academy of Music (travel grant for Toronto), 13 038 SEK.
Elin Kanhov, Ph.D. 