Both a musician and a computer scientist, Ge Wang turns ordinary MacBooks and iPhones into complex instruments.

Why you should listen

Ge Wang explores the intersection of technology and music, researching how programming languages and interactive software systems can push computer music from coded beeps and tones to something that musicians can actively play in the moment. An Associate Professor at Stanford University, Wang is the founding director of both the Stanford Laptop Orchestra (SLOrk) and the Stanford Mobile Phone Orchestra (MoPho). He was named a Guggenheim Foundation Fellow in 2016 and is the author of Artful Design: Technology in Search of the Sublime -- a 488-page, full-color comic book about design as the art of humanizing technology (Stanford University Press, 2018).

Wang is also the man behind ChucK, a programming language built specifically for sound. He also co-founded Smule, a startup dedicated to musical apps that let people around the world make beautiful music … and connect with each other in the process. Wang is the designer of Ocarina, which turns your iPhone into an ancient flute.

Ge Wang’s TED talk

More news and ideas from Ge Wang