We're back in Brooklyn today to meet with the intensely creative musician and composer Ryan Lott who writes and records under the name Son Lux.

He's made three solo albums, including "Lanterns" in 2013 and "We are Rising" in 2011, which was made in response to a challenge from NPR to make an entire album in 28 days.

Ryan is no stranger to collaboration.

In fact, it's at the core of just about everything he does.

He's work with Sufjan Stevens and Serengeti, with Lorde, and with members of Punch Brothers, and Arcade Fire.

He's performed at Carnegie Hall with the Young People's Choir of New York, has composed for a number of dance companies, and has arranged for a number of films including "Looper" in 2012.

Ryan's work is densely layered, and he has the remarkable ability to synthesize the talents of a wide range of people.

He's working on a new album, and he's about to head out on tour.

But we've caught him at his home in Brooklyn and he'd like to form a new collaboration-- with you.

Hi, I'm Ryan of Son Lux and this is your art assignment.

A lot of people refer to me as an electronic musician, which is a little bit misleading because most of my music, most of the materials in my music are actually acoustic, and their origin is acoustic.

And I explore the sonic potential of acoustic sound with digital signal processing.

Which sounds really fancy, but basically just means that I just mess with sound with computers, and the tools at my disposal that are digital to find really interesting things that may be hiding inside of acoustic sound.

I'm a pianist, and I sing, and I play some other instruments.

And I have a slew of friends who are amazing at their respective instruments.

So I consider, as a composer, I consider all those things are my tools, but ultimately I harness them all in some form or fashion with a computer.

One thing that's special about music is that it plays well with others.

It pairs really well with dance, it pairs really well with visuals, it pairs really well with story.

And it both supports and is enhanced by other art forms.

I love the idea that a piece of music can have a certain life inside of my mind, and in my studio, and then as soon as it's out in the world it takes on a whole different life, a new life.

So here's what we're going to do.

We're going to collaborate.

I'm going to write a piece of music and then you're going to respond to it.

If you're also a musician maybe you could remix it, maybe you could embellish it with your own arrangements, add to it.

If you're a dancer, how about you make a dance.

If you are really good at Vine, how about you make a series of Vine videos.

If you do stop motion claymation do something like that.

Anything.

Just respond to it.

This is a collaboration between you and me.

I'll bring myself to it, and I want you to bring yourself to it.

So Sarah, as you know, I'm a huge fan of collaboration.

You and I collaborate on this project.

I collaborate with my brother a lot.

I once collaboratively wrote a novel with my friend David Levithan.

Also, I'm a huge Son Lux fan, so this assignment is perfect for me.

I am also a huge Son Lux fan.

But I'm curious, how would you characterize your collaborations?

Well, I always imagine collaboration as like two people in the same room all the time, and there's a lot more independence in my collaborations, a lot more space I guess I would say.

And I think that's what this assignment with Son Lux brings up is that there's a way to collaborate quite independently where you create this great thing together, but it's developed quite separately.

And it actually reminds me of the ongoing collaborations between music and dance.

And especially the work of Merce Cunningham, America's foremost modern dancer and choreographer, and his partnership with John Cage.

Merce Cunningham joined forces with many artists throughout his career.

But his most indelible collaboration occurred with his life partner, famed experimental musician John Cage.

They created many works together, but one of the discoveries that guided them was actually the separation of music and dance, not allowing either art form to be subordinate to the other.

The work shared the same time and space, but each element was created separately and brought together at the moment of performance.

Artist Robert Rauschenberg was brought into the mix for the work "Minutiae" from 1954.

For it, they used Cage's existing "Music for Piano 1-20" and Rauschenberg created a freestanding environmental object.

Merce and his company's dancers moved around the object, through it, and under it, the choreography determined by chance processes, and consisting of small abrupt movements.

Scholar Roger Copeland suggested that Cunningham's way of working can be understood as a part of the collage aesthetic of modernism.

The disparate elements could co-exist in a layered, open-ended composition.

Cunningham and Cage found a way of working together that kept the integrity of each of their contributions.

And you have the same freedom to determine the rules of your own collaboration with Ryan.

When you respond to another art form something chemically happens differently in your brain as it relates to your own creative process.

If you're creating something out of your own urges, out of thin air, you're going to come up with something, and I'm sure it'll be great.

But there's something else that happens, a different kind of mental processing, different kind of creative process when you create something in response to someone else's art.

And I think that's what makes this project unique, which is-- and a lot of the art assignments-- is that there's something to respond to.

And in this case, it's a piece of music that I will create out of thin air.

My inspiration, of course, will be that it will be part of a collaboration.

But what I create out of thin air then your challenge, if you choose to accept it, is to respond to it.

And chances are something will emerge that will surprise you.

And it'll help unlock something that is there, but just may be needed a nudge.

[music playing] SARAH URIST GREEN: And not that they're divorced from each other.

Sorry.

He doesn't like the question.

Yeah.

He's like, always talking about this.

SARAH URIST GREEN: I know.

[laughter]