Conference Agenda

In the seminal “A Cyborg Manifesto” (1985), Donna Haraway argues that technological advancement ushers in a utopian age that dissolves the categories of race and gender and the distinctions between man, machine, and nature. Post-bubble Japanese media, whether psychological sci-fi anime or vocaloid music, repudiates this stance (Uno 2008); as time goes on, the cyborg becomes less human but more feminized and more racially marked (Eidsheim 2019). This paper considers the music of Vocaloid utaite (cover singer) Ado and her harsh vocal, lyrical, and visual critiques of the Japanese idol industry as a case in which technological advancement reifies and exacerbates the social, gendered, and material conditions that produced it. We explore cybernetic women as a hyper-feminized, posthuman subject in Japanese popular culture by drawing parallels between Ado’s recordings and sci-fi anime Ghost in the Shell (1995) and Serial Experiments Lain (1998). We argue that the fetishized feminine figure, modified by the male gaze and the manipulation of the voice and physical body by technology (Black 2012, Lam 2016), ushers in a society in which intimate, sexual relationships between humans are replaced with parasocial relationships between male and machine (Aoyagi 2005). Ado, and other Vocaloid singers like yama and Kenshi Yonezu, comprise a system wherein humans imitate machines emulating humans, all while losing their humanness in the process. Vocaloid singers’ voices become subjects of fetishization: as the ultimate site to fulfill a fantasy about female bodies, and as a cyborgian projection of the futile future of humanity.

A stroll down the avenues of the Xinyi or Ximending shopping districts in Taipei will yield quite a few busking shows ranging from musical performances to terrifying acrobatics. And if it’s a nice Saturday, there will be at least 10 amateur dance troupes vying for a performance spot to film their next “K-pop in Public” cover for YouTube. These dance troupes are not buskers. They do not request permits, ask for money, or even interact with crowds. While they help to define the spaces in which they perform, they are more a part of a global community associated with the “K-pop in Public” trend – in which dance troupes ranging from amateur to semi-professional imitate K-pop dance videos in public spaces for online consumption. While the use of “irl” spaces in these videos affects the physical community that they are a part of similar to buskers, the larger impact lies elsewhere – a sort of grassroots cultural export that brings the place into online spaces and communities and highlights aspects of local culture even as it participates in and reifies a global phenomenon. This paper will utilize studies on place and space, globalization and glocalization, mediascapes, performance practice, identity, and Taiwanese and Korean studies to argue that Taiwanese youth are not only reifying Taiwanese identity and creating locality through their participation in “K-pop in Public”, but are also protecting and future-proofing Taiwanese identity as artifacts of both identity and place continue to travel ever more broadly through a globalized mediascape.

Research by computer engineers on the technical and scientific aspects of AI music generation has expanded rapidly in recent years (Cros Vila et al. 2025; Hernandez-Olivan and Beltran 2021; Mycka and Mańdziuk 2024; Rowe 2020; Yang and Lerch 2020; Zhao et al. 2025). However, few studies have examined AI as part of a collaborative creative process (Knees et al. 2020; Newman et al. 2023; Rohrmeier 2022). Existing examples of AI-based artists show that coherent musical output is possible (King and Earl 2025; Kleinman 2025; Lozo 2026; Vaziri 2025), but research rarely documents the artistic processes or reflects critically on human choices in AI music generation (Gioti 2020; Micchi et al. 2021). Studies examining AI as part of a human-led approach, in which composers guide and transform commercial AI-generated material, have yet to be conducted. Addressing this gap, this paper examines AI-assisted music-making through hokutone, a virtual Japanese rock band and AI music project that serves as a platform for practice-based research into human and AI collaboration. It investigates how human composer-songwriters work with AI-generated music as a creative tool, considering its advantages, limitations, and the ethical concerns surrounding intellectual property. Central to this process is the design of prompts or written instructions that commercial AI platforms such as Suno rely on to generate music. This paper explores human interaction with AI-generated music, analyzing how composers experiment with creative choices, express their artistic identity, and the extent to which AI contributes independently, revealing the complex dynamics of creative collaboration with technology.