DANYLIW RESEARCH SEMINAR ON CONTEMPORARY UKRAINE

Songs at War: Ukrainian Popular Music, AI, and the Digital Front

The presentation looks at the strategic and affective functions of music in the Russo-Ukrainian war, with a focus on the Ukrainian popular music scene as both a cultural and informational force. It explores how music operates at the intersection of wartime resistance, humanitarian mobilization, and national identity formation, while also interrogating the role of algorithmic infrastructures and AI technologies in shaping sonic perception during digitally mediated war.

Olga Zaitseva-Herz is an ethnomusicologist and postdoctoral fellow at the Kule Folklore Centre, University of Alberta (Canada).

INTERVIEW