Granfaloon Fest '23 - Featuring Jordan Munson, Flaming Lips

“The main business of humanity is to do a good job of being human beings, not to serve as appendages to machines, institutions, and systems.” - Kurt Vonnegut

Click here for tickets and more info on this year’s Granfaloon Fest.

Kurt Vonnegut holds a special place in the hearts of Hoosier artists and arts fans, and for a number of years now Indiana University has held the Granfaloon Fest in Bloomington to celebrate his legacy. This year’s Granfaloon Fest starts June 6 and runs until the 11th. This annual festival brings together writers, visual artists, musicians and more to celebrate the irony and genius of one of Indiana’s greatest philosphers. The festival kicks off the Bloomington summer arts season and highlights the creative spirit of the region by tapping into the enduring ethos of Vonnegut’s life and work: promoting civic engagement, encouraging independent thought, and championing art and creativity as essential to the spiritual life of individuals and the health of our democracy.

The theme of this year’s Granfaloon Fest is “Player Piano”, Vonnegut’s first novel, which focuses on machines replacing human workers and the social and economic impacts it has on a future society. A very far out idea in 1952 when it was published, but a very real one in 2023.

This year’s lineup is notable not only for the national acts associated with it (the event will feature international music stars the Flaming Lips and Arrested Development), but also for the local flavor that is usually connected in with the festival. One of the headliners this year is Son Lux, led by IU grad and former Bloomington resident Ryan Lott. Fresh off of an Oscar nomination for writing the score for Everything Everywhere All At Once (much of which was created in Indianapolis during the pandemic), Son Lux will bring their eclectic and ethereal sound back to Bloomington. The event will also feature a number of local acts as well, including Indianapolis’s Jordan Munson, the Vonnegut themed Billy Pilgrim and the Earthlings (featuring Indy native Chris LaFave), a performance by Girls Rock Bloomington, DJ Angst, David T. James, and Mark Bingham.

We were able to catch up with Jordan Munson to talk about his performance and what it means to him to be a part of this year’s event.

On what Jordan is doing at the Fest:

Electronic artist Jordan Munson (Indianapolis) will be one of many local acts featured in this year’s event.

I have two things going on, which is cool. The theme for this year is “player piano” and I’ve been doing work using a computer to generate content which a piano plays back and creates these digital feedback loops. At Morganstern’s Bookstore for the next two weeks there will be a player piano running a loop that I set up. It will be an AI driven model that starts with a prompt from Vonnegut and interprets it into piano music. It keeps track of what it plays, and uses a neural network to grow and change and build on itself. The computer will learn from itself and create something new each day.

I have an EP of these “Player Piano” pieces coming out next Friday partially commissioned by Granfalloon Fest titled “Impostures”. It features five separate pieces. They started with cell phone recordings of piano improvisations, and then I had a computer interpret what it thought I played and play it back. This all started early in the pandemic and the theme of this year’s festival just happened to coincide with the work.

I also play a live show at the Bishop on Thursday June 8th. I have Ko Newborn joining me and I haven’t played with her yet so that should be fun. I’m doing some of my solo stuff, it ought to be exciting. “

On AI in art, a theme of this work and of the Vonnegut novel:

I’ve been using machine learning in music for years. It works well with my process, which is iterative. I’ve been doing this even before AI, running loops and creating expressionism in music. It just becomes another tool for me. I’m not doom and gloom about it. There are some concerning things about it affecting human thought but my take on it in the larger scale is it will make our expectations greater. One hundred years ago people never thought you could drive a car fifty miles an hour. It’s just the state of the art…

It’s the same way with art. Its just another tool, like digital photography. The same conversations happened when that first came out “this is the end of photography” “this is not real photography” and of course that wasn’t the case. There’s still the chance that the result can be bad art. You can run a prompt and still get something that is not good and it is up the artist to use their style and aesthetic for what they want to take from it.

I also think if you’re worried about AI putting you out of a job in arts and music then maybe you need to think about what kind of art and music you make. Are you making things that are interesting and have depth to them? AI can produce as good as you put in. I mean, you can have the nicest guitar in the world and still make bad music. It’s the same idea.”

On performing with Son Lux and others

“I’ve been fortunate to be connected to Son Lux for some time. I’m friends with those guys now and I luckily got to remix a track that is coming out in July from remixes of “Lanterns” for a 10 year rerelease. I was asked to do that and so I’m really excited to be connected to them. I’ve brought them in multiple times as artists in residency over at IUPUI. It’s cool though, I’ve never played a festival with them so that ‘ll be a great reunion.

Flaming Lips, of course, I remember watching them back in the day. Arrested Development… it’s going to be an excellent lineup. I’m trying to check out as much as I can, I’m excited to see as much as I can the whole week!”

Granfaloon Fest will take place across multiple venues all over Bloomington. This year’s festival will be presented at the same time and in partnership with the Indiana University Writers’ Conference and the Bloomington Handmade Market. 

For more information and tickets visit: https://granfalloon.indiana.edu

Back in 2019, MFT helped Jordan debut his new video for “Friction” to check that out click here!