Blind Tom and AI: Exploring Music and Subjectivity

Ahead of the UK premiere of his Sound Investment commission ...and other spirits at BCMG's Still Life concert on Sunday 21 June 2026, composer George Lewis delivers a free public lecture at the University of Birmingham. Book via Eventbrite Below is George Lewis's abstract for his lecture: The Reincarnation of Blind Tom: Music, Machines, and Subjectivity Czech writer Karel Čapek’s play R.U.R. [Rossum's Universal Robots, 1920] portrays conflict between human capitalists and a new source of labor, the “robota,” a term that has come down to us as “robot.” Čapek’s model for the play, the robota system of Bohemian serfdom, was similar to the later American “sharecropping.” While Čapek does not directly refer to US chattel slavery, his play presents the robotic equivalent of “house” slaves, robots who do the cooking and cleaning, and “field” slaves, robots who work the farms and factories. On occasion, US s...