01
Initial condition
Each participant begins by selecting an arbitrary sustained note. The group therefore starts from a deliberately uncoordinated musical state.
Self-organisation · Collective music · Embodying cybernetics
Musical Homeostasis
How might collective musical order emerge when no one is conducting?
Exploratory research project
Active
Participatory · Interactive
Overview
One of the recurring questions throughout my research is how collective order emerges without a central controller—a phenomenon known as self-organisation. Whether in materials, ecosystems, communication networks, or human–AI systems, complex patterns often arise from simple local interactions among many individual components. While these ideas are commonly illustrated through simulations of particles, cells, or agents, I have been interested in exploring whether they can also be experienced directly through music.
The term homeostasis is inspired by W. Ross Ashby's Homeostat, one of the earliest cybernetic machines to demonstrate how stable global behaviour can emerge through continual local adaptation. Drawing on the same principles, Musical Homeostasis is an ongoing experiment in creating an embodied manifestation of self-organisation.
Music provides a way to feel emergence: we tune into one other, embrace changes, and collectively create an outcome that no individual determines alone.
Why music?
I was very fortunate to grow up in an environment filled with music. My musical journey began when I started learning the piano at the age of seven—after first overcoming the heartbreak of being turned away by my prospective piano teacher a year earlier simply because I was "too young" (!). As a teenager, I managed to convince my parents that I absolutely needed a violin in my life, and later I picked up a guitar in my 20s so I could accompany myself while singing.
My favourite downtime is with singing at the top of my lungs, simply for the joy and comfort it brings. Music has become an indispensable part of my life. It grounds me, lifts me up, and creates beautiful resonance across space and time.
What fascinates me most is music's remarkable ability to connect people. Even without formal musical training or verbal communication, music invites us to be present and, in many ways, to recognise something about ourselves. We may not share the same language, technical vocabulary, or cultural background, yet we can still sense tension and release, harmony and imbalance, repetition and change. In those shared experiences, music becomes more than sound — it becomes a way of relating to one another and, more importantly, of making meaning together.
Musical Homeostasis therefore shifts attention away from musical expertise and towards listening, adaptation, and collective sense-making. The activity asks participants not to perform a predetermined composition, but to create the conditions in which a collective musical structure can organise itself.
How Musical Homeostasis works
The simplest form of Musical Homeostasis (MH v.1) translates three elements of a self-organising system into a shared musical activity.
02
Local interaction
Participants listen to the notes around them and may change their own note at any time. There is no conductor and no access to a complete global plan.
03
Emergent equilibrium
Through repeated mutual adjustment, the group may converge on one note, form a harmonious chord, or settle into another arrangement that feels collectively satisfactory.
Self-organisation
Collective dynamics
Feedback
Adaptation
Equilibrium
Interactive experience
Listen, adapt, and let the music organise itself
Invite at least two friends or colleagues to join from their own devices. Each person chooses a note, listens to the collective sound, and changes notes as the group searches for a musical equilibrium.
No musical background is required. For the clearest experience, participate in the same physical room and keep device volumes moderate.
Where the project could go next
Musical Homeostasis is intentionally minimal at this stage. Its simplicity makes the central dynamics visible, but it also leaves substantial room for richer models: new interaction rules, computational agents, spatial or networked arrangements, multimodal visualisations, empirical studies of group behaviour, and installations that connect physical and online participation.
I am especially interested in how different rules and constraints shape the kinds of equilibria a group can reach, how disturbances reorganise an established musical state, and whether recurring dynamical signatures can be identified across different groups and settings.
Collaborate
Help develop the next iteration
I would be delighted to hear from researchers, musicians, educators, designers, artists, and creative technologists interested in developing more sophisticated models, participatory experiments, interactive installations, or learning activities inspired by Musical Homeostasis.