The Bassetti Foundation on Spatial

Leave a reply Jonny Hankins
The Foundation’s Gallery on Spatial

Best wishes for the new year to all of our readers from all of us here at Technology Bloggers and the Bassetti Foundation.

2025 was a busy year for us all, and I thought I would highlight a development that might be of interest to our tech-thirsty readership.

Poiesis Intensive Innovation with the Metaverse

2025 saw the development of the Bassetti Foundation’s gallery on Spatial. The gallery hosts what we call our ‘Cover Story’, and we open the new year with a focus on poiesis intensive innovation, a form of innovation that does not come from scientific methodology or protocol, but from knowing how to do things. We could think about tinkering with machinery so that it can be adapted to perform new tasks, using materials in unusual ways, the human and non-technological side of innovation.

This is a field that I have been active in for many years, it was the focus for one of my (free to download) books, and the exhibition hosts several pieces of my work within a series of videos about projects we have been developing through the Foundation.

As the Cover Stories change, so does the gallery. You will find images that weave a common thread throughout the history of our activities, connecting STEAM (Science, Technology, Engineering, Art, and Mathematics) disciplines as well as the gender issues that permeate these fields, so crucial to the growth of our society. This provides an overview of the complexity of operating responsibly in research and innovation in a rapidly changing world like ours.

Come and check it out.

Steward.exe releases First Single

Leave a reply Jonny Hankins

On 28 October, Steward.exe released blockroots.tar, the first of a series of tracks and albums from a project that was born from the meeting between Italian composer Luca Severino and myself, Jonny Hankins. As regular readers will know, Steward.exe aims to be a synthesis of sound research and ethical reflection in the age of artificial intelligence. The project emerged in 2025 as a natural evolution of our multidisciplinary collaboration through the Giannino Bassetti Foundation, partner of this blog.

Listen to the track on your platform of choice here.

Steward.exe debuted at the N.I.N.A. Festival in Milan in 2025 with a performance integrating AI-generated compositions, live acoustic elements, and featuring performance artist Lisa Mos as a robot that is learning (through AI) to appreciate music and dance. Further shows followed, in addition to live DJ sets in club settings. The project goes beyond simple technological experimentation to become an artistic manifesto on the creative and ethical dilemmas of the digital age. Through the fusion of generative algorithms and human sensitivity, Steward.exe questions the future of art and redefines the boundaries between creator and creation, positioning itself as a pioneer of a new form of poiesis-intensive, philosophically informed electronic music. We continue to develop the concept through songs, articles, performances, and dialogues, establishing Steward.exe as a benchmark for responsible innovation in the contemporary electronic music scene.

About Luca

Luca Severino brings over a decade of experience in the international club scene to the project, with releases since 2009 on prestigious labels such as Defected and Snatch!. His transition to media composition in 2015 have seen him contribute to Netflix productions such as “Emily in Paris” and RAI productions, his most recent soundtracks including “De Occulta Imagine” by Stefano P. Testa and “René Va Alla Guerra,” the latter of which won an award at the 81st Venice Biennale. With numerous albums of music for images for international publishers, Severino has established himself as a sound architect capable of blending strong melodic elements, electronics, and innovative sound design.

And you know me.

Music, Machine and Human Relationships.

1 Reply Jonny Hankins

Following on from my last post about Error 0xHUMAN: System Overdrive, I wanted to introduce another music project that plays on the intersection between AI and musicianship. A new work by composer Zeno van den Broek premiered at the Gaudeamus Festival in Utrecht on 10 October with AI powered drum robots developed specifically for the show.

The robots are responsive, learning from the music as it is played by humans. They can develop their own ideas as well as respond to the music that they are emersed in.

This is a step away from playing with a pre-programmed machine, at which point the musicians are slaves to the rigidity of technology, as the technology can influence the sound produced itself.

Another aspect that I find interesting is that the musician has developed a way of communicating with the robots using gestures, very much as we ‘live’ musicians do between each other. And the robots have a light system that they themselves can use to communicate with those surrounding them. They might want to make a change in the structure or sound for example.

The robots can ask for the materials that they play to be changed (maybe from wood to metal), and they can make these requests whenever they ‘want’. The timing of requests changes too, with changes requested more or less frequently at different points by different players.

There are a lot of similarities here with the Error0X:Human project. The line between AI and machine production and human production is blurred. AI is an artistic tool that might also be seen as having its own agency. Both projects raise lots of questions about art, authorship and creativity.

There is an article in the Dutch newspaper Trouw available in which the band members (the human ones) talk about their experience. One of the aspects is that the robots have names and really aren’t spoken about as if they were machines, but as band members. They have gone beyong machinery and into something that has agency. It’s a lovely article to read.

And if you can get to Bucharest on 20th September my colleague Luca Severino is bringing the Error0X:HUMAN project to a new public in a new format…. See below, on full screen.