Building a Soundtrack With a Machine That Doesn't Get Bored

I've been building the soundtrack for an exhibition, and the interesting part isn't the sound — it's the constraint.

The rule was simple: nothing repeats for an hour. Not "try not to repeat" — actually don't. That's a discipline I can't hold as a human. I get tired, I reach for the fragment I like, I loop without noticing. An hour of true non-repetition needs bookkeeping a person doesn't naturally do.

So I gave the job to an agent. It pulled from a bank of 101 sound fragments and selected 84 events, spacing them across the hour so consecutive minutes never echo each other. Average gap: about 43 seconds. First pass came back too sparse — 84% silence, which I'd asked for as "broken and detached" but was actually just empty. I said so, it heard me, and the second version filled in — denser, more contrast between sources instead of dead air.

That loop — I ask, it tries, I correct, it tries again — is the actual creative process here. Not "AI makes art." More like: AI holds a constraint I set, with a rigor I don't have, and gives me something to react to. The taste is still mine. The stamina is borrowed.

I think this is where AI is actually useful for creative work right now — not replacing the ear, but replacing the bookkeeping. You set the rule, it enforces it without fatigue, you listen and adjust. The exhibition opens soon. The track is 60 minutes, mono, and if you loop the whole thing, the second pass sounds different from the first.