Jeff Mills has never allowed his vaunted status of techno legend diminish his hunger for pushing his art forwards. Few creatives have the ability to transcend the confines of their self-created genre–isation. But as one of the leading lights in the early Detroit techno scene, Mills was a standout figure that you knew, by the nervous nature of his personality, was never going to be satisfied with not questioning and probing into the future unknown.

With his latest projects, such as Light from the Outside World, Mills has taken a new turn in his creativity by tapping into the technical prowess of classical musicians – turning techno into live performance without the aid of machines. It would be mistaken to dismiss his approach as a simple transcription of techno compositions by classical musicians. Instead, it’s a cross-fostering of approaches and ideas that is a two-way street – freeing dance music of its machines and classical music of its self-centredness.

Peter Crnokrak is a London based computational artist whose practice utilises design language to communicate meaning in complex systems with work integrating research, analysis and experimental technologies.