Andrew Melchior, the creative technologist behind digital projects for David Bowie, Björk, and Massive Attack, has been appointed Honorary Professor in Computer Science at The University of Manchester. The three-year role, announced September 18, 2026, focuses on research and teaching at the intersection of artificial intelligence, creative practice, copyright, and digital provenance - a direct response to the upheaval generative AI is causing across creative industries.
From touring artists to cryptographic infrastructure
Melchior has served as Chief Technology Officer for Massive Attack since 2013 and is founder of Genotone, a deep-tech company building cryptographic audio infrastructure. The goal is to prove human origin and creative authorship in recorded music. His earlier work includes pioneering an artist website with David Bowie, helping shape Björk Digital and the Vulnicura VR album, and creating Massive Attack's Fantom app and Mezzanine DNA experiment.
"Creative work is becoming fluid. It can be copied, transformed and recombined at machine speed, while authorship and ownership struggle to keep up," Melchior said. "This appointment is an opportunity to bring computer scientists, artists, lawyers and policymakers together to build practical systems that keep identity and provenance attached to creative work."
Policy work and the fight for creative authorship
Melchior advises UK government technical working groups on AI and copyright convened by the Department for Culture, Media and Sport and the Department for Science, Innovation and Technology. He represents the Music Managers Forum, Featured Artists Coalition, and Association for Electronic Music in those discussions. Earlier this year, he delivered a keynote examining how creative work can be attributed, protected, and rewarded as generative AI becomes more widely used, making the case for reliable systems that verify authorship and trace provenance.
His appointment builds on a visit to Manchester that sparked conversations between researchers, students, policymakers, and creative practitioners. Professor Michelle Phillips, Director of Creative Manchester, said Melchior "has a remarkable ability to bridge worlds that do not always naturally come together, from computer science and policy to music, the arts and the creative industries."
Why this matters for creatives
Melchior's appointment signals that the fight over attribution and ownership in AI-generated work is moving from op-eds into university labs and policy rooms. For working creatives, the systems he builds could determine whether your style, voice, or output gets absorbed into training data without credit - or whether cryptographic provenance tools give you a way to prove what's yours. The technical infrastructure emerging from this kind of cross-disciplinary research will shape licensing models and copyright norms for years. If you work in generative art or music production, the standards being debated now will directly affect how you get paid - or don't - for work that machines remix in seconds. Following developments in AI for creatives is no longer optional; it's part of protecting your practice.
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