An Approach to Building Musical Bioprocessors with Physarum polycephalum Memristors

This chapter presents an account of our investigation into developing musical processing devices using biological components. Such work combines two vibrant areas of unconventional computing research: Physarum polycephalum and the memristor. P. polycephalum is a plasmodial slime mould that has been discovered to display behaviours that are consistent with that of the memristor: a hybrid memory and processing component. Within the chapter, we introduce the research’s background and our motives for undertaking the study. Then, we demonstrate P. polycephalum’s memristive abilities and present our approach to enabling its integration into analogue circuitry. Following on, we discuss different techniques for using P. polycephalum memristors to generate musical responses

Unconventional Computing and Music: An Investigation into Harnessing Physarum polycephalum

This thesis presents an investigation into developing musical systems with an Unconventional Computing substrate. Computer musicians have found it difficult to access the field of Unconventional Computing, which is likely due to its resource-intensive and complex nature. However, ongoing research is establishing the myxomycete Physarum polycephalum as a universally-accessible and versatile biological computing substrate. As such, the organism is a potential gateway for computer musicians to begin experimenting with aspects of Unconventional Computing. Physarum polycephalum, in its vegetative plasmodium form, is an amorphous unicellular organism that can respond with natural parallelism to the environmental conditions that surround it. This thesis explores the challenges and opportunities related to developing musical systems with Physarum polycephalum. As this area of inquiry is in its infancy, the research took inspiration from a common approach in Unconventional Computing: a journey of exploration and discovery. This journey consisted of a selection of waypoints that provided direction while allowing the research to explore applications of Physarum polycephalum in order to establish how it may be useful in Computer Music. These waypoints guided the research from adapting established prototypes for musical application to developing purpose-made musical demonstrators for use outside of the laboratory. Thus, the thesis reports on a series of Computer Music systems that explore one or more features of Physarum polycephalum's behaviour and physiology. First, the text presents an approach to algorithmic composition that exploits the organism's ability to form and reconfigure graph-like structures. Next, the thesis reports on systems that harness the plasmodium's electrical potential oscillations for sound synthesis and compositional tools. Finally, the thesis presents musical devices that encompass living plasmodium as electrical components. Where applicable, the thesis includes artefacts from demonstrations of these systems, some of which were developed in collaboration with a composer. The findings from this journey demonstrate that Physarum polycephalum is an appropriate substrate for computer musicians wanting to explore Unconventional Computing approaches creatively. Although Physarum polycephalum is relatively robust as a biological substrate, several obstacles arose during this project. This research addressed such obstacles by reviewing and selecting approaches that maintained the organism's accessibility to computer musicians. As a result, the work suggests methods for developing systems with the organism that are practical for the average music technologist and also beneficial to the wider group of scientists investigating Physarum polycephalum for other purposes.Plymouth University HumPA Studentshi

Music interpretation and civilization – rationalising the body and expression in performance

ISBN 978-989-99832-7-4A interpretação musical evidencia na sua transforma ção história o recurso a um aparato físico progressivamente mais extenso, pressupondo, do pont o de vista da preparação técnica do intérprete, um marcado autodomínio e domínio da mot ricidade fina. Por outro lado, a relação que entretecem a representação cognitiva da estrutura m usical com o movimento corporal e a produção e perceção de desvios expressivos, permite m sustentar uma conceção do gesto e da expressão como interização da estrutura musical. Ne sses pressupostos, a interpretação musical é apresentada como um caso particular dos racionaliza ção e autodomínio identificados por Adorno na teorização da modernidade, e teorizados por Norberto Elias na elaboração sobre os processos civilizacionaisinfo:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersio

Um corpo elíptico: a expressão e o gesto sob o signo da civilização

[Extrato] Na interpretação musical, como decorre da assimilada designação anglo-saxónica performance, o corpo assume um marcado protagonismo. Ao problematizar perspetivas alternativas em que o corpo emerge ora objeto, ora como sujeito na criação de sentido, sugere-se, a partir da relação entre mimesis e racionalidade apresentada por Adorno, a pertinência de pensar biunivocamente os esquemas abstratos como racionalização da experiência corporal, e os elementos expressivos e corporais (neurológicos, gestuais) como interiorização de representações cognitivas. [...]info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersio