The advent of generative AI is turning the creative industry upside-down. Are ChatGPT and other generative AIs with so-called large language models about to render creative professionals surplus to requirements? Artist-researcher Jacco Gardner prefers to see things differently. At the beginning 2026, he will kick off a professional doctorate (PD) at Inholland to investigate how collaboration with AI can create new forms of audio-visual expression. And, the way he sees it, it’ll be in much the same way that we got to grips with early computers in the 1980s and 1990s. “We can learn a great deal from the pioneers back then, in combination with the protocols from the current digital revolution.”

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Early on in his career, Jacco was mainly known as a musician, composer, and producer. Then, from being a multi-instrumentalist with a penchant for psychedelic music, he gravitated towards a retro-futuristic synthesiser sound. Unfortunately, gigs inside and outside the Netherlands left him little room for research. “I’ve always considered research to be important,” he insists. “In 2012, I actually graduated from the Utrecht School of the Arts with a thematic study of the distinctive sound generated by the unique limiter, an historical musical instrument built by Phonogram engineer Jan Audier and dating back to the ‘60s and ‘70s.”

Live performances
In the meantime, Jacco has reached the stage where he can combine research and performance. “I can now bring studio experiments onto the stage and collaborate with electronics as if they were musicians,” he continues. In the context of these audio-visual performances, he builds installations from machines, staying in live contact with them like a conductor would with an orchestra. A key role here is played by forgotten intelligent sequencers, which are devices that make their own compositional choices. “It’s as if you are improvising with musicians; there’s real-time interaction between me and the equipment.”

Man and machine
The rising popularity of the sequencer coincided with that of digital electronic music in the 1980s, he explains. “It was a fascinating time. Protocols were developed that enabled the mutual exchange of musical information between electronic musical instruments. What makes this digital revolution so exciting is the collaboration between people and machines. The 1980s machines were seen as accomplices, as it were, and thus extensions of your creativity, exhibiting complex, unpredictable behaviour, just as if they were human. And it’s that human behaviour that has so much in common with today’s AI.”

Collaborating with AI
Jacco has identified many commonalties between the digital revolution that took place 40 years ago and today’s generative AI. “What you see now, however, is that people are delegating too much to AI, which can be problematic. Instead, we need to learn to collaborate with technology, like those 1980s and 1990s pioneers did. We can learn a lot from them and the protocols of the current digital revolution. We have to treat AI as a creative instrument for human expression, but to do so we must first of all learn how to understand and interact with it. If we don’t, and leave it all to algorithms that we don’t really understand, we’ll be sacrificing our autonomy as creative professionals and making do with a homogeneous outcome.”

Triangular relationship
Jacco uses AI in his audio-visual performances. “On stage, a kind of triangular relationship exists between me, the AI ​​model that I use, and the digital instruments. AI thus draws from our cultural past and stimulates our creativity with a language we understand. It’s an intriguing scenario for me that forms a central tenet of my PD research. In other words, how can AI reconcile the input of creative digital systems and creative professionals, while, in so doing, preserving collaborative intelligence and enabling new forms of audio-visual expression? Will AI thus be able to stimulate human creativity by learning from the legacy of the digital revolution?”

Pioneers
In his PD, Jacco wants to help (aspiring) creative professionals, such as students, use AI to boost their creativity. “I think it’s important to share the legacy of the 1980s digital revolution with them and connect them with the pioneers of that era. Perhaps show today’s creators how we can make the protocols and technology of that era accessible to them, so that they can build on them. I’d like to see those pioneers get the recognition they deserve and connect today’s creators with them through symposia.”

Innovation in the Music Industry
Jacco’s PD will take five years, under the supervision of Koos Zwaan, professor of Innovation in the Music Industry. “Jacco’s project is a perfect fit with the research agenda of my research group,” assures Koos. “In his research, Jacco’s main focus is on the interaction between technological and creative innovation, exploring aspects such as the role new technology plays in musicians’ production processes and presentation formats. But social innovation also plays a significant role in Jacco’s research, because it involves the preservation of our digital heritage and, in a broader sense, questions the societal role played by technology. And while the use of AI can no longer be circumvented, we need to ask ourselves how we can best use it? As well as the conscious choices we need to make when doing so.”

Monday, January 27, saw the kick-off of 'Heal the Healer,' a new project aimed at improving mental health in the music industry. Thanks to funding from Centre of Expertise Prevention in Health & Social Care, this project, which will last one year, can get underway. Led by Koos Zwaan, professor of Innovation in the Music Industry, a team of researchers, teachers, welfare professionals and professionals from the music industry is working on sustainable solutions to mental health challenges in this sector.

Great urgency
Working in the music industry is not only inspiring, it also comes with risks. According to international research, as many as 70% of those working in the industry struggle with mental health problems, ranging from burnout and anxiety disorders to depression. The cause? A combination of economic uncertainty, performance pressure and a work culture in which stress is often seen as inevitable.

Professor Koos Zwaan explains: “The music industry is a wonderful but also demanding environment. The fact that mental well-being is such a wide-ranging problem became clear to me when I drew up the for the pop sector. Different mental challenges were mentioned from each expertise. With Heal the Healer, we not only want to create awareness, but also develop practical tools and interventions to better support both students and workers. This project offers an opportunity to make a lasting impact on the sector.”

What does Heal the Healer entail?
Heal the Healer focuses on two main pillars:
 

1. Prevention: Increasing the mental resilience of individuals so they are more resilient to the challenges of the music industry.
2. Amplition: Improving working conditions by encouraging structural change in the industry.

These interventions are being developed in collaboration with students from three Inholland programs - Haarlem Conservatory of Music, Leisure & Events Management and Creative Business -  and together with mental health professionals and coaches. In addition, work field organizations, such as BAM! Popauteurs and Music Managers Forum NL (MMF), are actively involved in testing and implementing the solutions.
 

Kick-off: inspiration and collaboration
During the kick-off of Heal the Healer, all parties involved came together for the kick-off of the project. Besides exploring the objectives and research design, knowledge was shared. Professor of media studies Mark Deuze (UvA) was a guest and outlined the mental challenges within the creative sector. Inholland alumni Mandy Delaporte and Lucas Garnier shared insights from their thesis research on mental well-being in the dance and pop rock scene, respectively.

The ambition of Heal the Healer extends beyond the music industry. The knowledge and interventions gained can also be of value to other sectors within the cultural and creative industries.

The Executive Board of Inholland University of Applied Sciences has appointed Koos Zwaan as Professor of Innovation in the Music Industry as of 7 November. Koos had been part of the Creative Business Research Center as associate professor since 1 August 2011. He is also lablead of the International Music Industry lab, one of the living labs of the Faculty of Creative Business.

Koos Zwaan: "I am honoured that the Executive Board, out of appreciation for my work as associate professor and the importance given by Inholland University of Applied Sciences to innovation in the music industry, has decided to appoint me as professor. Within the research group, and the IMI lab, I give substance to innovation by looking at three overlapping forms of innovation. Technological innovation, which can include the rise of generative AI, but also blockchain for digital revenue sharing, VR/AR, and immersive sound. Creative innovation, which is often about how that technology is used to create innovative musical productions. Think also of the emergence of relatively new genres of music, such as EDM and hip-hop, that opened the way for the emergence of these genres through, at the time, novel technological innovations. Or more recently, how the rise of short video platforms like TikTok have provided a new form of creative expression for musical talent. And social innovation, where the power of music is used to bring about social change, such as sustainability or inclusion and diversity. At the same time, this can also mean how this industry itself needs to transform and work on these kinds of themes, how do you ensure that the music industry itself becomes more sustainable and inclusive?"

Bas van Spréw, Dean, Faculty of Creative Business: “There are many issues at play in the music industry that are important to both the sector and wider society. These include sustainability, the rise of new technology, ethics and social safety, good working conditions and fair pay for creators and other professionals in the industry, and inclusion and diversity, both in the venue, on stage, and behind the scenes. Innovation in the music industry has since long been a focus within Inholland University of Applied Sciences. We educate a lot of students who contribute to the innovative capacity of the music industry from their role as artists, managers, event managers or innovation specialists. It is therefore perfectly logical to choose to contribute to innovation in the music industry through applied research as well. I am proud that Koos is leading this as a professor from our faculty."

Peggy van Schijndel, Managing Director, Creative Business Research Center: “As Creative Business Research Center, we have a lot of experience with design research for social issues. It comes full circle nicely when we can do the same for creative professionals in another design discipline: music. I am also delighted that we can appoint a colleague as a professor. As associate professor, Koos has shown for many years that his experience as a lecturer at various programmes within Inholland is enormously useful in connecting education and research. The International Music Industry lab is a great example of this.”

Together with Popcoalitie, a partnership of several affiliated organisations in the Dutch pop sector, researchers from Inholland University of Applied Sciences, have drawn up a new research and innovation agenda for the pop-music industry. In it, the most pressing themes and issues that need research or innovation, are being mapped out. This new agenda was presented to the organisations affiliated with the Popcoalitie on 12 April. The next step is to be a matchmaking meeting that will be held on 6 June. Organised with the support of CLICKNL, the aim of the meeting is to form cooperatives that want to start up research or innovation projects.

Post-COVID impulse
In the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic, the music industry was clearly in need of a fresh impulse. The shutting down of live pop music during the pandemic had major repercussions for creatives, organisations and employees in the sector. It also highlighted issues that had been ongoing for some time before the pandemic, such as fair compensation for creatives, the vulnerable employment situation faced by employees and their irregular working hours. At the same time, the pandemic also forced the industry to experiment with new revenue models, such as hybrid and online performances. With the venues, clubs and festivals once again open, the industry is now having to contend with serious staff shortages, and this has further increased the already high workload on employees. And all this against the continuing backdrop of social issues, such as inclusion, diversity, climate change and digital developments.

Setting an example for other sectors
Koos Zwaan, Associate Professor of Innovation in the International Music Industry at Inholland University of Applied Sciences, feels strongly that the social impact that music has on the pop sector serves as an example for other sectors. ‘Music has the power to connect and visualise and for many people it even plays a key role in their identity,’ he insists. ‘Exploiting the power of this connection and visualisation so that it impacts social issues calls for smart collaboration initiatives between the pop sector and knowledge partners, such as higher vocational education institutions and universities. And this can be achieved through research and innovation projects that provide an impulse to innovation and collaboration in the industry.’ In the International Music Industry Lab, which is actually led by Koos Zwaan, Inholland is working with partners from the field on projects exactly like these.

Research and innovation themes
Themes in the research and innovation agenda have been developed with input collected from representatives across the whole pop sector during various working sessions. Input was also harvested from visitors at the Congress Podia Festivals Evenementen (in September 2022), No Man’s Land (December 2022) and Eurosonic Noorderslag (January 2023).
Its main themes are: talent development, professionalisation, inclusion & diversity, new digital technology & business models, mental & physical well-being, the societal impact of pop music, climate impact and internationalisation. The full agenda can be downloaded from the website. 

Speaking on behalf of the day-to-day management of Popcoalitie, Martijn Kramers says that its agenda offers opportunities for innovative solutions that will strengthen the industry and underscore a healthy and sustainable music ecosystem. ‘You need look no further, for example, than fair practices for all stakeholders, inclusivity for employees and the sustainability of activities. In fact, everything that forms part of the value chain of the Netherlands’ pop-music sector.’

Matchmaking
The next step is to bring together parties from the broader field of pop music, researchers from other universities and universities of applied sciences, as well as parties that can finance collaborative projects. To this end, Inholland and the Popcoalitie, supported by CLICKNL, are organising a matchmaking meeting. The objective of this meeting is to form partnerships that will focus on questions from the agenda and that will initiate further research and develop and implement innovations for, and with, the pop sector. The meeting will be held on Tuesday, 6 June, 2023 in the A-lab in Amsterdam.