About

Jérôme Nika is a researcher and an electronic musician specialised in generative technologies for human-machine creative interactions. He graduated from the French Grandes Écoles Télécom ParisTech and ENSTA ParisTech in 2012. In addition, he studied acoustics, signal processing and computer science applied to music (ATIAM Master, Sorbonne Université) and composition. He specialised in the applications of computer science and signal processing to digital creation and music through a PhD at Ircam (Young Researcher Prize in Science and Music, 2015; Young Researcher Prize awarded by the French Association of Computer Music, 2016), and then as a postdoctoral researcher. Between 2018 and 2020, he works as a freelance computer music designer / musician (Lullaby Experience, an evolutive project by composer Pascal Dusapin, Silver Lake Studies, in duo with Steve Lehman, C’est pour ça, in duo with Rémi Fox,…) and is invited researcher at Le Fresnoy – Studio National des Arts Contemporains. Since 2020, he is a permanent researcher at Ircam, and is involved in numerous artistic productions.

As a researcher in the ISMM team at Ircam, Jérôme Nika’s work focuses on how to model, learn, and navigate an “artificial musical memory” in creative contexts. In opposition to a “replacement approach” where AI would substitute for human, this research aims at designing novel creative practices involving a certain level of symbolic abstraction such as “interpreting / improvising the intentions” and “composing the narration“. The latest environments resulting from his research are Dicy2 for Max and Dicy2 for Ableton Live.

The design of AI-empowered musical practices involves researches on the integration of temporal specifications (scenarios) in music generation processes; on the dialectic between reactivity and planning in human-computer creative interactions; as well as real-time detection and inference of underlying structure in an audio stream. This research is conducted in constant and long-term interaction with expert musicians and encompasses the entire process from modeling, development, artistic validation, up to implementation in ambitious artistic productions.

Jérôme Nika conceives and develops AI generative technologies in interaction with expert improvisers, performers, and composers. These generative agents combine machine learning models and generative processes with reactive listening modules (Dicy2, OM-Dicy2, ImproteK,…)

Numerous artistic productions have used technologies resulting from this research since 2016 (Roulette, Brooklyn, New York; Onassis Center, Athens, Greece; Ars Electronica Festival, Linz, Austria; Frankfurter Positionen festival, Frankfurt; Annenberg Center, Philadelphia, USA; Bimhuis, Amsterdam, Netherlands; French embassy in Washington DC; Studio 104 de la Maison de la Radio, Grande salle du Centre Pompidou, Collège de France, LeCentquatre, Paris, France; Montreux Jazz festival; Theatre Plaza, Montreal Jazz Festival etc.). 

As an electronic musician or music technology designer, Jérôme Nika is involved in numerous musical productions and artistic collaborations, particularly in improvised music (Steve Lehman, Orchestre National de Jazz, Bernard Lubat, Benoît Delbecq, Rémi Fox), contemporary music (Pascal Dusapin, Alexandros Markeas, Ensemble Modern, Marta Gentilucci), and contemporary art (Le Fresnoy – Studio National des Arts Contemporains).