Marius w/ Jacco Gardner - 8th April 2026

AI in music is often framed as something completely new. But if you look at the history of electronic music, artists have been working with “intelligent” machines for a long time. In this conversation at Operator Radio, Marius de Witte speaks with Jacco Gardner about that lineage. From early sequencers and algorithmic composition to today’s AI tools. Not to hype or reject AI, but to better understand what is actually changing and what isn’t. Where does authorship sit? What does control mean now? And when does technology feel like collaboration, and when does it not? Jacco Gardner is a composer, producer and media archaeologist whose practice is built on a single recurring question: what can the history of human-machine creativity tell us about where we are now, and where we might still go. He studied at the Utrecht School of the Arts (HKU), where he developed a strong foundation in programmable music environments. His work focuses on the intersection of technology and music history, exploring how past tools and ideas shape current and future forms of human-machine creativity. www,operator-radio.com