Playing with Machines: The expanded string quartet in the digital age

Playing with Machines is a series of three short films featuring newly commissioned works for string quartet and electronics, written for Komuna Collective. Each film explores human–machine collaboration, reimagining the string quartet as a site of dialogue between acoustic and digital performance. Presented alongside a panel event chaired by composer Professor Matthew Shlomowitz, the project asks what it means to play with technology – to treat it not merely as a tool, but as a creative partner in sound, gesture and form.

The string quartet genre emerged in the 18th century and quickly became a cornerstone of the Western classical canon. From Haydn and Mozart to Beethoven and Shostakovich, its repertoire traces the evolution of Western art music itself. But where do we situate the quartet today? We inhabit a globalised, digital age – one in which music is encountered less in salons or concert halls, and more through headphones, smartphones, car stereos and the background hum of public spaces.

Playing with Machines rethinks the quartet in this context, asking how a form once emblematic of classical enlightenment might speak in an era defined by networks, screens and digital mediation. Following recent movements in new music that explore embodiment, disembodiment and human–nonhuman agency, the project presents three short films that reimagine the quartet as a hybrid ensemble: part human, part other.

Through this expanded lens, Komuna Collective continues its inquiry into the changing conditions of performance in the 21st century.