Music by Numbers

10 years ago, two Russian artists named Komar and Melamid hired a market research firm to find out the public’s likes and dislikes in art. They wanted to know what works, but moreover they wanted to know what doesn’t work. They began with visual art, and then moved on to music.Online surveys were used to determine what instruments and styles were most favourable in music. The same question was then asked with respect to unfavourable music. They then created two pieces. One which in principle should be enjoyed by the majority and one which should in turn, only be favoured by a small, small minority. This week on Sheffield Live we’re going to play both and in the process find out what happens when you try to make “Music by Numbers”. This ‘Mind Labs’ work is presented by Lynn Rishworth.

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