Steward.exe releases First Single

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.

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.

Longevity: Now Available in Cans!

Through my work at the Bassetti Foundation (a Technology Bloggers partner) I have been fortunate enough to lecture at universities and schools about responsibility in innovation. At the Foundation we have a concept that we call Poiesis intensive innovation, and I try to put this idea into practice during my lessons. Poiesis could be thought of as the art or craft of being able to do something. It resides within an individual as well as an institution. It might be the ability to use a machine or piece of technology in a way that it was not necessarily designed for, or to use skills that could be seen as from a different field.

With Angelo Hankins as collaborator, I use my theatre training and secondary school teaching experience in a lecture called Longevity: Now Available in Cans! This lecture aims at getting students to think about the role of technology design in future-making, based on the idea that technological development plays a role in steering society and as a result the way we behave and experience life. We only have to think about the development of the internet, or its commercial development from an initial military role, to see how our lives have been changed by a few individuals who built the system we now use every day.

And I would say that they crafted these developments, or that they are crafting them as they develop.

During the lecture we present a (near future) drink called Longevity. The drink contains nanobots, a form of nanotechnology. The nanobots are really switches that can be turned on and off. These switches stimulate your body to produce different levels of adrenaline. The user downloads an app which they use to control their own adrenaline levels, offering the possibility to lower levels at night so that sleeping patterns can be made regular, and once asleep, levels can be lowered to such an extent that they go into a form of hibernation. This allows the body to rest more, offering the chance to live 30% longer!

The presentation brings in lots of topics for discussion related to how the introduction of such a product might affect society. Will it be fairly distributed? How will it change demographics? Which questions does it raise about marketing and claims about truth, values and life itself?

After the product launch, we have a sketch in which a great grandchild comes home to his/her grandparent to discover that they no longer want to take the drink. They say it is unnatural (currently 107 years old) and that all of their friends (including partner) have died. This means that they can’t look after the great great grandchildren any more, and this causes a conflict in the house. Are they just being selfish? What are societal and familial expectations.

The students then play with the props (pictured above) and improvise conversations, before reporting to the class. The idea is that the design process can be seen and decision-making moments can be talked about.

This game is not limited to schools and universities though. It makes a great party game. We have published an article which is free to download here that explains everything. It has a description of how to make the props, a fake video of the company announcement of its discovery, as well as notes so that anyone can use it anywhere. Everything is open access and free to use.

And I didn’t even mention the Happiness: Now available in cans! version. Dopamine on demand. With adrenaline!

So why not take a look and play it with your friends?