Max Order

Download a PDF version of the comic in Italian/French

Can computers help artists to create? Yes, thanks to ERC research! Max Order is a comic about Flow Machines, an artificial intelligence project developing computational models of style and implementing authoring tools to assist musicians and writers to create.

Flow Machines did not inspire us to create a musician robot or a mad scientist but a wannabe street artist, Max, struggling to find her style. Max's father is not very keen about his daughter's career plan, but she has the help of a very special assistant, Flowy...

Max Order is an algorithm developed by the Flow Machines team. To keep it simple, it is an AI technique that helps producing text or music in the style of a specific author, while avoiding plagiarism, and using copying, but not too much! We also thought it was a good name for a character.

Max Order is a pilot webcomic that introduces the ERCcOMICS series. A bit longer than the next three comics to be released in September, Max Order will be published in 15 episodes over a period of 15 months.

Turn the volume up and enjoy!

The science behind the comic

François Pachet (researcher)

François Pachet is the Director of the SONY Computer Science Laboratory Paris, where he leads the music research team. He received his Ph.D. and Habilitation degrees from Université Pierre et Marie Curie (UPMC). He is a Civil Engineer (Ecole des Ponts and Chaussées) and was Assistant Professor in Artificial Intelligence at UPMC until 1997, at which point he joined the Sony Computer Science Laboratory and created the music team in order to conduct research on interactive music listening, composition and performance.
francoispachet.fr

Fiammetta Ghedini (artist)

Born in Bologna, Italy, Fiammetta completed a PhD thesis on perceptual illusions (SSSUP, Pisa and UCL, London), then moved to Paris, where she began working in science communication. Becoming a comic artist has always been her secret plan so she thought of putting it all together: science + art = ERCcOMICS!
fiammettaghedini.com

Script & additional drawings : Massimo Colella / script consultant : Pierre Roy

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