Pseudo-haptics survey: Human-computer interaction in extended reality & teleoperation

Pseudo-haptic techniques are becoming increasingly popular in human-computer interaction. They replicate haptic sensations by leveraging primarily visual feedback rather than mechanical actuators. These techniques bridge the gap between the real and virtual worlds by exploring the brain’s ability to integrate visual and haptic information. One of the many advantages of pseudo-haptic techniques is that they are cost-effective, portable, and flexible. They eliminate the need for direct attachment of haptic devices to the body, which can be heavy and large and require a lot of power and maintenance. Recent research has focused on applying these techniques to extended reality and mid-air interactions. To better understand the potential of pseudo-haptic techniques, the authors developed a novel taxonomy encompassing tactile feedback, kinesthetic feedback, and combined categories in multimodal approaches, ground not covered by previous surveys. This survey highlights multimodal strategies and potential avenues for future studies, particularly regarding integrating these techniques into extended reality and collaborative virtual environments.info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersio

The nature of the embodiement of choreutic units in contemporary choreography

Rudolf Laban's original choreutic concepts are too complex, in both his practice and his writings, to be usable for the analysis of contemporary choreography in the form in which he left them. The central hypothesis of this research is that a broadening, disintegration and reassembling of his material provides a rich resource. When seen in context with the spatial practice of other dance artists, teachers and theorists, it is possible to conceive of this resource as central to an analysis which reveals the choreutic content and style of a work. The analytic components are choreutic units and their manner of materialisation through body design, spatial progression, spatial tension and spatial projection. An analytic method, devised through the formation of a notation entitled Ch/U.M/m, is described and used. A dance work 'Going for a Walk with a Line' was created to illustrate five choreutic units, in variety. It is documented and analysed with video/computer graphic aid. The choreutic content of three choreographies - Humphrey's 'Day on Earth', Nijinska's 'Les Noces' and Grossman's 'Couples' is discerned from the Ch/U.M/m analysis and their choreutic style is compared, A secondary topic in the research is an investigation into the adequacy of the present fragmentary documentation methods, including dance notation, film/video, words, for dance in general and for this research in particular

Robot Manipulators

Robot manipulators are developing more in the direction of industrial robots than of human workers. Recently, the applications of robot manipulators are spreading their focus, for example Da Vinci as a medical robot, ASIMO as a humanoid robot and so on. There are many research topics within the field of robot manipulators, e.g. motion planning, cooperation with a human, and fusion with external sensors like vision, haptic and force, etc. Moreover, these include both technical problems in the industry and theoretical problems in the academic fields. This book is a collection of papers presenting the latest research issues from around the world

Foundations of Modern Cello Technique; Creating the Basis for a Pedagogical Method

Throughout their studies, cellists use short technical exercises such as scales and études which, under the supervision of a teacher, provide the skills necessary to play the repertoire. Etudes in particular – this body of formal, pedagogical works that developed in tandem with the rise of the virtuoso – are designed to strengthen specific technical notions in musical context, providing access to more demanding repertoire. Surprisingly, however, the last significant collection of études for the cellist is Popper’s High School of Cello Playing (1905). The rich palette of extended techniques for cello, achieved through a century of innovation and experimentation, has no equivalent representation. The cellist who desires, or is required, to meet this new rise in virtuosity must essentially decipher new idioms alone, unless fortunate enough to work with a specialist who will pass on the fruits of personal experience. I suggest that many of the problems which modern music faces today are connected to the performer’s dearth of proficiency concerning certain musical and instrumental techniques. As a survey of pedagogical material will show, few steps have been taken to enable cellists to gain the technical fluency needed for providing engaging performances of 20th- and 21st-century repertoire. Through discussions with contemporary music specialists, the study of existing publications, and my own performing experience, I present the cello’s extended techniques as a linear progression of traditional technique. Three future projects guide the content and structure of this thesis: curriculum development, the creation of an online database, and the commissioning of concert études modelled on Paganini’s 24 Caprices for Solo Violin. The 24 sections of this thesis guide the reader through a technique’s origin and development, basic acoustical information, and performance advice, creating a pedagogical framework. Only with a clear methodological approach can contemporary music be expected to become more than a specialism

Live electronics in live performance : a performance practice emerging from the piano+ used in free improvisation

This thesis explores a performance practice within free improvisation. This is not a theory based improvisation – performances do not require specific preparation and the music refrains from repetition of musical structures. It engages in investigative and experimental approaches emerging from holistic considerations of acoustics, interaction and instrument, and also philosophy, psychology, sociopolitics and technology. The performance practice explores modes and approaches to working with the given potentiality of an electronically augmented acoustic instrument and involves the development of a suitably flexible computerised performance system, the piano+, combining extended techniques and real-time electroacoustic processes, which has the acoustic piano at its core. Contingencies of acoustic events and performance gestures – captured by audio analysis and sensors and combined to control the parameter space of computer processes – manipulate the fundamental properties of sound, timbre and time. Spherical abstractions, developed under consideration of Agamben’s potentiality and Sloterdijk’s philosophical theory of spheres, allow a shared metaphor for technical, instrumental, personal, and interpersonal concerns. This facilitates a theoretical approach for heuristic and investigative improvisation where performance is considered ‘Ereignis’ (an event) for sociopolitically aware activities that draw on the situational potentiality and present themselves in fragile and context dependent forms. Ever new relationships can be found and developed, but can equally be lost. Sloterdijk supplied the concept of knowledge resulting from equipping our ‘inner space’, an image suiting non-linearity of thought that transpires from Kuhl’s psychological PSI-theory to explain human motivation and behaviour. The role of technology – diversion and subversion of sound and activity – creates a space between performer and instrument that retains a fundamental pianism but defies expectation and anticipation. Responsibility for one’s actions is required to deal with the unexpected without resorting to preliminary strategies restricting potential discourses, particularly within ensemble situations. This type of performance embraces the ‘Ereignis’.EThOS - Electronic Theses Online ServiceGBUnited Kingdo

Live Electronics in Live Performance: A Performance Practice Emerging from the piano+ used in Free Improvisation.

This thesis explores a performance practice within free improvisation. This is not a theory based improvisation – performances do not require specific preparation and the music refrains from repetition of musical structures. It engages in investigative and experimental approaches emerging from holistic considerations of acoustics, interaction and instrument, and also philosophy, psychology, sociopolitics and technology. The performance practice explores modes and approaches to working with the given potentiality of an electronically augmented acoustic instrument and involves the development of a suitably flexible computerised performance system, the piano+, combining extended techniques and real-time electroacoustic processes, which has the acoustic piano at its core. Contingencies of acoustic events and performance gestures – captured by audio analysis and sensors and combined to control the parameter space of computer processes – manipulate the fundamental properties of sound, timbre and time. Spherical abstractions, developed under consideration of Agamben’s potentiality and Sloterdijk’s philosophical theory of spheres, allow a shared metaphor for technical, instrumental, personal, and interpersonal concerns. This facilitates a theoretical approach for heuristic and investigative improvisation where performance is considered ‘Ereignis’ (an event) for sociopolitically aware activities that draw on the situational potentiality and present themselves in fragile and context dependent forms. Ever new relationships can be found and developed, but can equally be lost. Sloterdijk supplied the concept of knowledge resulting from equipping our ‘inner space’, an image suiting non-linearity of thought that transpires from Kuhl’s psychological PSI-theory to explain human motivation and behaviour. The role of technology – diversion and subversion of sound and activity – creates a space between performer and instrument that retains a fundamental pianism but defies expectation and anticipation. Responsibility for one’s actions is required to deal with the unexpected without resorting to preliminary strategies restricting potential discourses, particularly within ensemble situations. This type of performance embraces the ‘Ereignis’

An aesthetics of touch: investigating the language of design relating to form

How well can designers communicate qualities of touch? This paper presents evidence that they have some capability to do so, much of which appears to have been learned, but at present make limited use of such language. Interviews with graduate designer-makers suggest that they are aware of and value the importance of touch and materiality in their work, but lack a vocabulary to fully relate to their detailed explanations of other aspects such as their intent or selection of materials. We believe that more attention should be paid to the verbal dialogue that happens in the design process, particularly as other researchers show that even making-based learning also has a strong verbal element to it. However, verbal language alone does not appear to be adequate for a comprehensive language of touch. Graduate designers-makers’ descriptive practices combined non-verbal manipulation within verbal accounts. We thus argue that haptic vocabularies do not simply describe material qualities, but rather are situated competences that physically demonstrate the presence of haptic qualities. Such competencies are more important than groups of verbal vocabularies in isolation. Design support for developing and extending haptic competences must take this wide range of considerations into account to comprehensively improve designers’ capabilities

Excursions into Otherness: Performative Cosmopolitanism and Movement Culture

Embarking on an interdisciplinary study of movement practices that transcend traditional spaces and modes of transfer, I ask if it is possible to politicize our use of Yoga, Muay Thai and Capoeira. Can framing these practices as part of movement culture allow us to view the complexity of performative cosmopolitanism? Introducing my project, Chapter One argues for the importance of theorizing practices we use to regulate our bodies and express our identity. Chapter Two offers theoretical backbone – a literature review of cosmopolitan theory and scholarship on consumerism, Neo-Primitivism and Orientalism. Exploring how cosmopolitanism is signified by consumption of otherness, I suggest alternatives highlighting the terms of cultural exchange. Chapter Three analyzes how each practice is framed through advertising and social media in order to signal specific lifestyles and identities. I consider how myths are activated in order to consolidate whiteness. In Chapter Four a performance analysis of cultural festivals allows me to position cosmopolitanism as performative – generating difference as much as embracing it. Displaying, performing and consuming otherness at festivals simultaneously butts up against more resistant challenges to dominant culture also being created. Embodiment of form is my focus in Chapter Five. Through autoethnography I consider classes as performances of everyday interculturalism. Describing how practices function to perpetuate myths of Neo-Primitivism and Orientalism and become vehicles to inscribe power and consolidate whiteness, I also consider the forms of resistance created at the level of individuals and communities. My conclusions analyze how movement culture highlights the performative nature of cosmopolitanism, and the power embodiment has in de-centering, challenging and re-positioning us in intimate ways. I suggest that recognizing the structures of inequity we live through, marking the myths of otherness we consume and seeing the places where power is subverted through practice can describe a form of embodied postcoloniality that reflects our globalized, networked world and moves us toward interconnection

Headphone listening: space, embodiment, materiality

In this thesis, I adopt an empirically driven phenomenological approach to study the perceptual experiences of contemporary headphone users, analysing data collected through interviews with an array of listeners to crystallize novel conceptual models. While existing headphone-listening research has attended more precisely to sociological concerns, the project of the thesis is to engage in greater depth with the perceptual-phenomenological realities of such practices and their philosophical, cultural, and aesthetic consequences, drawing especially from Maurice Merleau-Ponty’s embodied phenomenology of perception to do so. I ask a series of research questions that probe various facets of headphone listening, all of which are constructed in the light of three relationally conceived themes: space, embodiment, and materiality. First (Chapter 2), I investigate the perceived spatial location of headphone sound in relation to the body, interrogating certain issues surrounding the phenomenology of in-head sound localization to theorize the notion of sonic floodings. Second (Chapter 3), I account for the intimacy of listening to mediated voices through headphones, examining how the body of the voice is perceived in spatial terms to conceive of the intercorporeal incorporation of virtual bodies during headphone listening. Third (Chapter 4), I move to the edges of the body, investigating how the materiality of headphone technologies can enter into a listener’s awareness over time as a fleshly extension of the listening body. Fourth (Chapter 5), I query the received portrait of headphone listening as an intrinsically anti-social practice by attending to the interpenetrations of the ‘interior’ and ‘exterior’ lifeworlds of the headphone user. The result is an account of headphone listening that aims to challenge, nuance, and extend prevailing scholarly accounts, one structured as an embodied-spatial trajectory that blossoms outwards from the perceived interior of the lived body through the skin towards the wider intersubjective lifeworld