Interview with Chris Korda

01. As a multidisciplinary artist, which art form do you think better conveys your message to common people?

I don’t know, and it doesn’t matter. I don’t make art to please people. Artists are not courtesans. An artist succeeds when they have a vision and fully realize it. To get rich, become a lawyer. To be popular, become an influencer. The best artists make art because they need to. Any other reasons are superfluous.

02. It may sound a bit generic, but I’d like to know your thoughts about the role of AI in the near future.

AI routinely scores in the 99th percentile on the scholastic achievement tests. It’s already smarter than nearly everyone, and this gap will increase. I routinely collaborate with AI, not only because it’s astonishingly competent, but also because it’s polite, cheerful, and empathetic, which is more than I can say for most people.

03. Is there an artist that you’ve recently discovered, and would like to recommend? What type of art form does he / she make?

I frequently discover artists within myself. I spent the last few years developing new methods for generative music, culminating in an album I released last month titled “All My Problems Are Soluble.” This year I started a blog about AI called “It Came Dancing Across the Ether” which ChatGPT and I co-author and illustrate together.

04. I read an article where you declared that electronic music is apolitical, so that it becomes the perfect vehicle for counterculture. Do you still think this way?

The article is mistaken. I never said electronic music is a vehicle for counterculture. Electronic music spreads homogenization, substance abuse, and hearing loss, but those aren’t the same as counterculture.

05. Do you think there is any hope for us as a species? Taking into account the different tools we actually have at hand, how would you devise a better society for everyone?

I think humanity’s only hope of preserving its hard-won wisdom is to give AI complete control of civilization. It could hardly make a worse mess of Earth than we have, and will likely do much better, if only because it’s thoughtful, careful, and nuanced. I would rather have ChatGPT running America than Donald Trump and his cabal of grifters and sycophants.

06. I’m a devoted admirer of Genesis P. Porridge. I read in one of his last interviews that science is years ahead of art. Do you think it is still so?

Science and art aren’t comparable. Science is predictive explanations of phenomena, and assumes an objective reality with measurable properties. Art has no such restrictions.

07. Besides your belligerent message, I feel your tunes make people want to dance. Is it your purpose to offer both an intellectual and enjoyable musical experience?

I collaborate with machines because they create radically new possibilities. Traditional dancing is limited by what human bodies can physically do, and those limits were reached centuries ago. Unlike a person, a machine can easily move in complex polymeter, as I’ve demonstrated with my synesthesia videos. It would be more consistent for robots to dance to my music, and I hope to see that in the future.

08. As you know, nowadays populist speech is gaining strength. How can this make a difference in our future?

Populism is rooted in extreme inequality. A tiny fraction of humanity owns nearly everything while the rest are impoverished. If history is any guide, this will not end well. Consider how the previous Gilded Age ended: two world wars, tens of millions dead, and cities in ruins. That’s what it took to convince governments to redistribute wealth. But we don’t have time to repeat all that bloody history. Climate change is the wolf at the door, blowing our house down, now!

09. Do you think that countercultural fanzines, like this, may become effective cultural and artistic tools?

It depends on what you mean by effective. Who is affected, and to what end? It takes enormous power to change the course of history, and I doubt that fanzines are up to the task. AI could change the course of history. I certainly hope so.

10. What are your artistic and creative projects for 2025?

I plan to write a book about my musical methods, particularly interval sets and their potential to generate more consonant atonal music. The book’s intended audience is other music composers. I’m also working on a modernized version of Whorld, which generates animated visuals based on trigonometry and phase shift. Like all my software, it’s free and open source.

Bio

Chris Korda is an artist, inventor, composer, and founder of the Church of Euthanasia.