Tracing the Compositional Process. Sound art that rewrites its own past: formation, praxis and a computer framework

The domain of this thesis is electroacoustic computer-based music and sound art. It investigates a facet of composition which is often neglected or ill-defined: the process of composing itself and its embedding in time. Previous research mostly focused on instrumental composition or, when electronic music was included, the computer was treated as a tool which would eventually be subtracted from the equation. The aim was either to explain a resultant piece of music by reconstructing the intention of the composer, or to explain human creativity by building a model of the mind. Our aim instead is to understand composition as an irreducible unfolding of material traces which takes place in its own temporality. This understanding is formalised as a software framework that traces creation time as a version graph of transactions. The instantiation and manipulation of any musical structure implemented within this framework is thereby automatically stored in a database. Not only can it be queried ex post by an external researcher—providing a new quality for the empirical analysis of the activity of composing—but it is an integral part of the composition environment. Therefore it can recursively become a source for the ongoing composition and introduce new ways of aesthetic expression. The framework aims to unify creation and performance time, fixed and generative composition, human and algorithmic “writing”, a writing that includes indeterminate elements which condense as concurrent vertices in the version graph. The second major contribution is a critical epistemological discourse on the question of ob- servability and the function of observation. Our goal is to explore a new direction of artistic research which is characterised by a mixed methodology of theoretical writing, technological development and artistic practice. The form of the thesis is an exercise in becoming process-like itself, wherein the epistemic thing is generated by translating the gaps between these three levels. This is my idea of the new aesthetics: That through the operation of a re-entry one may establish a sort of process “form”, yielding works which go beyond a categorical either “sound-in-itself” or “conceptualism”. Exemplary processes are revealed by deconstructing a series of existing pieces, as well as through the successful application of the new framework in the creation of new pieces

Socio-technical systems for loosely bound cooperation

Thesis (S.M.)--Massachusetts Institute of Technology, School of Architecture and Planning, Program in Media Arts and Sciences, 2009.Cataloged from PDF version of thesis.Includes bibliographical references (p. 118-123).This thesis introduces a programming environment entitled Share that is designed to support and encourage loosely bound cooperation between individuals within communities of practice through the sharing of code. Loosely bound cooperation refers to the opportunity members of communities have to assist and share resources with one another while maintaining their autonomy and independent practice. We contrast this model with forms of collaboration that enable large numbers of distributed individuals to collaborate on large scale works where they are guided by a shared vision of what they are collectively trying to achieve. Our hypothesis is that providing fine-grained, publicly visible attribution of code sharing activity within a community can provide socially motivated encouragement for participation as well as pragmatic value of being able to better track downstream use and changes to contributions that an individual makes. We shall present a discussion of loosely bound collaborative practice in various creative domains and the technological and social factors that contribute to the salience of these forms of cooperation today as well as discussing the motivational factors associated with open source development and how they differ in the case of cooperating individuals who do not share a project. We will also present an overview of the design of our tool and the objectives that guided its design and a discussion of a small-scale deployment of our prototype among members of a particular community of practice.by Yannick Mahugnon Assogba.S.M

Cultural Entrepreneurship: Unlocking Potential through Value Creation

This thesis explores the challenges and opportunities of cultural entrepreneurship, exploring current conceptualisations of cultural entrepreneurs and to find new perspectives and recommendations for cultural entrepreneurs of the future. Cultural entrepreneurship is a contested, yet essential aspect of the growth of artists and arts organisations globally. Though there are similarities, this research demonstrates that cultural entrepreneurs from different backgrounds, industries and of varied sizes need different things and have different barriers so cannot be understood in the same way. Digital technologies and local networks do offer new possibilities for innovation however these are limited in scope and require further investigation and investment. Despite psychological, political and financial barriers to entrepreneurship in the creative industries, finding a balance between artistic, social, economic and institutional innovation for the various actors throughout the arts offers key insights to how artists and arts organisations can be more entrepreneurial. Through a grounded theory approach, this research connects previously disparate fields of cultural policy, social entrepreneurship and business model innovation to derive new perspectives of how cultural entrepreneurs can survive and thrive in the dynamically shifting world. Themes that emerged through the data analysis connect in new ways to Cohendet et al.’s (2012) ‘Anatomy of a Creative City’, outlining the underground, middleground and upperground actors; Albinsson’s (2017) theories of the quadruple bottom line in the creative industries; and a value ecosystem’s approach with a focus on value creation (Allee, 2002; Curtis, 2017). From this combination of literature and data collected, a novel approach to understanding cultural entrepreneurs emerges, creating a model to understand more holistically how value is created and captured for the artist or arts organisation. This model has a range of practical approaches intended to provide tangible pathways into combining the concepts of the quadruple bottom line, value ecosystems and different conceptualisations of cultural entrepreneurs, offering a novel contribution to all of these fields in addition to, and most significantly the topic of cultural entrepreneurship

Music in Evolution and Evolution in Music

Music in Evolution and Evolution in Music by Steven Jan is a comprehensive account of the relationships between evolutionary theory and music. Examining the ‘evolutionary algorithm’ that drives biological and musical-cultural evolution, the book provides a distinctive commentary on how musicality and music can shed light on our understanding of Darwin’s famous theory, and vice-versa. Comprised of seven chapters, with several musical examples, figures and definitions of terms, this original and accessible book is a valuable resource for anyone interested in the relationships between music and evolutionary thought. Jan guides the reader through key evolutionary ideas and the development of human musicality, before exploring cultural evolution, evolutionary ideas in musical scholarship, animal vocalisations, music generated through technology, and the nature of consciousness as an evolutionary phenomenon. A unique examination of how evolutionary thought intersects with music, Music in Evolution and Evolution in Music is essential to our understanding of how and why music arose in our species and why it is such a significant presence in our lives

The Evening is Over, the Beauty Remains : A Semiotic Study of Piet Mondrian's Text "Natural Reality and Abstract Reality"

Abstract This study concentrates on the Dutch artist, Piet Mondrian, as a producer of a Neo-Plastic theory of art. My semiotic reading focuses mainly on one of his article series, Natural Reality and Abstract Reality (Natuurlijke en abstracte realiteit [1919-1920]), and acknowledges also the accompanying writings in the De Stijl periodical where it appeared, and a few photographs of Mondrian’s studio and motifs present in the paintings at the time when Mondrian wrote Natural Reality and Abstract Reality. Mondrian produces his ideas of non-figurative art in a way in which other external cognitive processes from science, certain esoteric streams, modern urban experience and popular culture, are to be taken as integral parts of the theory formation in his own text. This view elucidates the idea of creativity in a new way because it situates the artist’s individual activity within cultural knowledge and memory rather than just taking influences from it. I have reached these findings by relating Mondrian’s little-researched article series to the surrounding international philosophical, esoteric and technologizing cultures of the 1920s. Studying this relation in terms of significations has led to my study reflecting the paradigmatic and related meaning effects in contemporary philosophies and reflections, such as those of Henri Poincaré, Rudolf Steiner, Henri Bergson and Sigmund Freud. By reading the text as a fictive dramatic score my study relies on Roman Jakobson’s poetic function. Following in the lines of literary scholar Jørgen Johansen’s subsequent application of Charles Peirce’s semiotics this study reads Mondrian’s article series as the process of iconization; as a flow of images, as diagrammatic enactment and as metaphors of night and a stroll. To stage the route from ‘natural reality’ to ‘abstract, Mondrian gives to Natural Reality and Abstract Reality the flavour of being a form of logical inference applied by means of images. As a flow of images the text shows a stream of consciousness and, thus, the modern insight of perception, which differs from the traditional Kantian dualistic insight and the notion of the stable subject. The form of the text itself also represents meaning, which shows that Mondrian had literary ambitions. The aesthetic effect of the text as a diagram of many thematic oppositions and as the characters’ relations makes it a self-reflective icon of its own theme of modern consciousness. Metaphorically, the text presents the processual character of an artist’s creative thought as a night-time stroll, while developing the idea of Neo-Plasticism. Thus, there are definite Neoplatonic tenets in Mondrian’s text. This study shows that creative activity takes place not only in the processes of an individual mind but also by actively integrating and using cultural signs, such as the idea of evolution or the cultural text of the Euclidean derivative, the ‘point to line to plane’. By these kinds of ‘cultural artefacts’ Mondrian is able to conduct his own activity within and for the modern culture of the 1920s.Abstrakti: Tutkimukseni valottaa hollantilaisen taiteilijan, Piet Mondrianin ajattelua neoplastisen taideteorian tuottajana. Semioottisen näkökulmani keskiössä on yksi hänen artikkelisarjoistaan, Natuurlijke en abstracte realiteit [1919-1920]), unohtamatta kuitenkaan muita, rinnakkaisia artikkeleita De Stijl -lehdessä, missä Mondrianin artikkelisarja alun perin ilmestyi. Näkökulmaani tukee muutamien Mondrianin studiota esittävien valokuvien tarkastelu sekä esimerkki artikkelisarjan kirjoittamisajankohdan maalaustuotannosta. Mondrian tuotti ei-esittävän taiteen ideansa siten, että hän hyödynsi taiteen kentän ulkopuolisia tieteestä, tietyistä esoteerisista virtauksista, modernin urbaanin ihmisen kokemuksesta ja populaarikulttuurista peräisin olevia kognitiivisia prosesseja integroimalla niitä taideteoriansa olennaiseksi osaksi. Näkemykseni valaisee luovuutta uudella tavalla, sijoittamalla taiteilijan luovaa ajattelua pikemminkin kulttuurisen tiedon ja muistin alueelle kuin vain vaikutteita siitä ottavaksi. Tavoitteena on ollut Mondrianin vähän tutkitun artikkelisarjan suhteuttaminen sitä ympäröiviin 1910-luvun filosofisiin ja esoteerisiin virtauksiin sekä teknologisoituvaan kansainväliseen kulttuuriin. Näissä suhteissa välittävinä instrumentteina ovat paradigmaattiset merkitysefektit, jotka Mondrian on jakanut tekstissään esimerkiksi sellaisten reflektoivien käsitysten kanssa, joita ovat edustaneet esimerkiksi Henri Poincaré, Rudolf Steiner, Henri Bergson ja Sigmund Freud. Mondrianin teosta olen tutkinut ikään kuin fiktiivisenä näytelmänä nojautuen poeettisen funktion -käsitteeseen (Roman Jakobson) ja edennyt Jorgen Johansenin sovellusta myötäillen Charles Peircen semioottiseen ikoni-käsitteeseen. Mondrianin määrittämä ’taiteen tie’ figuratiivisesta todellisuudesta (natuurlijke realiteit) kohti abstraktia todellisuutta (abstracte realiteit) luo mahdollisuuden tarkastella hänen ajatteluaan loogisena ja kuviin perustuvana. Kuvien virtana (flow of images) Natuurlijke en abstracte realiteit esittää modernin näkemyksen havainnosta, joka eroaa kantilaisesta stabiilin subjektin ajatuksesta antamalla vaikutelman tietoisuuden virrasta. Tekstin muoto henkilöiden ja temaattisten vastakohtien suhteina (diagrams) kiinnittää huomiota ja saattaa viitata Mondrianilla olleisiin kirjallisiin tavoitteisiin. Muodon tuottama esteettinen vaikutelma tekee tekstistä itseään reflektoivan, oman tietoisuuden -teemansa ikonin. Taiteilijan luovan ajattelun prosessi on esitetty yön, tien ja valaistun kaupungin metaforina (metaphors) – samalla kun se kehittää neoplastista taideteoriaa. Tutkimukseni näyttää, että uutta luova ajattelu ei ole ainoastaan yksittäisen mielen sisäistä toimintaa, vaan uusi luodaan myös integroimalla ja käyttämällä kulttuurisia merkkejä. Mondrianin tapauksessa tämä on merkinnyt evoluution ideaa ja euklidisen geometrian ideaa ’pisteestä viivan kautta tasoon’. Tämän kaltaisten kulttuuristen ’artefaktien’ kautta Mondrian on kyennyt ohjaamaan omaa toimintaansa neoplastisen taideteorian tuottajana ikään kuin 1910-luvun modernista kulttuurista käsin ja sitä varten

Early modern extended minds and the Shakespearean subject of the mirror

The use of the mirror in Shakespeare's works, both as a stage prop and as a literary motif, opens a view for us into early modern concepts about cognition and subjectivity and enables the examination of their relation to current embodied, embedded and extended mind ideas. This closing chapter again shows Shakespeare adopting and transforming conventional mirror-motifs. The mirror-motifs provide evidence that characters who attempt to situate their subjectivity entirely within, as a transcendent, autonomous and centralised inwardness, are portrayed as failing to take into account the fundamental role of forms of extendedness and the intersubjective make up of their intrasubjectivity. Third-person perspectives, visual perception and introspection are compared in terms of performing similar functions and the body and passions are shown to be part ofthe loop of reason. Characters are depicted as both intentionally and unintentionally acting as a subjective prop for another character; either as a model for imitation or through providing a supplementary perspective. The intentions ofthe subject holding up the mirror do not necessarily affect the accuracy of the image they reflect, although like a character's introspective reflections they are not certainly reliable either. Since both third-person and first-person perspectives vary in reliability a combination of outward and inward mirrors appears the only way forward for a human subject. The Shakespearean character, like the early modern subject, is depicted as existing in a biological, sociocultural, technological and spiritual universe, in which all factors are at once variably divisible and dynamically in play

Proceedings of the GIS Research UK 18th Annual Conference GISRUK 2010

This volume holds the papers from the 18th annual GIS Research UK (GISRUK). This year the conference, hosted at University College London (UCL), from Wednesday 14 to Friday 16 April 2010. The conference covered the areas of core geographic information science research as well as applications domains such as crime and health and technological developments in LBS and the geoweb. UCL’s research mission as a global university is based around a series of Grand Challenges that affect us all, and these were accommodated in GISRUK 2010. The overarching theme this year was “Global Challenges”, with specific focus on the following themes: * Crime and Place * Environmental Change * Intelligent Transport * Public Health and Epidemiology * Simulation and Modelling * London as a global city * The geoweb and neo-geography * Open GIS and Volunteered Geographic Information * Human-Computer Interaction and GIS Traditionally, GISRUK has provided a platform for early career researchers as well as those with a significant track record of achievement in the area. As such, the conference provides a welcome blend of innovative thinking and mature reflection. GISRUK is the premier academic GIS conference in the UK and we are keen to maintain its outstanding record of achievement in developing GIS in the UK and beyond

Artefacts, Technicity and Humanisation industrial design and the problem of anoetic technologies

This thesis concerns the intellectual heritage and autonomy of West European and American industrial design as a discourse community at a moment when biotechnological developments are challenging the certainty of what it means to be human. Proceeding from the assumption that industrial design is an autonomous intellectual engagement played out through the interpretation of technology as an artefact, the thesis identifies how this is a critical moment for industrial designers, who appear to be unable to respond to a problem of the apparent disconnection and the progressive displacement of the human in reference to technology. The thesis identifies the cause of this as the understanding of the artefact, which has conventionally been placed at the centre of its analysis. The way that this has been constructed has not only impacted on design solutions but has led to a particular understanding of technology. It is this understanding of the artefact that has ceased to be sustainable and has precipitated the crisis. The thesis argues that, by revisiting the artefact as a mutable consequence of culture, it is possible to relieve the problem by opening up the scope for finding new methodological approaches. These can be used to develop design strategies that are sufficiently subtle and coherent in their terms to engage with the open complexity of future discussions of the distributed and enacted human

Choreographing the extended agent : performance graphics for dance theater

Thesis (Ph. D.)--Massachusetts Institute of Technology, School of Architecture and Planning, Program in Media Arts and Sciences, 2005.Includes bibliographical references (v. 2, leaves 448-458).The marriage of dance and interactive image has been a persistent dream over the past decades, but reality has fallen far short of potential for both technical and conceptual reasons. This thesis proposes a new approach to the problem and lays out the theoretical, technical and aesthetic framework for the innovative art form of digitally augmented human movement. I will use as example works a series of installations, digital projections and compositions each of which contains a choreographic component - either through collaboration with a choreographer directly or by the creation of artworks that automatically organize and understand purely virtual movement. These works lead up to two unprecedented collaborations with two of the greatest choreographers working today; new pieces that combine dance and interactive projected light using real-time motion capture live on stage. The existing field of"dance technology" is one with many problems. This is a domain with many practitioners, few techniques and almost no theory; a field that is generating "experimental" productions with every passing week, has literally hundreds of citable pieces and no canonical works; a field that is oddly disconnected from modern dance's history, pulled between the practical realities of the body and those of computer art, and has no influence on the prevailing digital art paradigms that it consumes.(cont.) This thesis will seek to address each of these problems: by providing techniques and a basis for "practical theory"; by building artworks with resources and people that have never previously been brought together, in theaters and in front of audiences previously inaccessible to the field; and by proving through demonstration that a profitable and important dialogue between digital art and the pioneers of modern dance can in fact occur. The methodological perspective of this thesis is that of biologically inspired, agent-based artificial intelligence, taken to a high degree of technical depth. The representations, algorithms and techniques behind such agent architectures are extended and pushed into new territory for both interactive art and artificial intelligence. In particular, this thesis ill focus on the control structures and the rendering of the extended agents' bodies, the tools for creating complex agent-based artworks in intense collaborative situations, and the creation of agent structures that can span live image and interactive sound production. Each of these parts becomes an element of what it means to "choreograph" an extended agent for live performance.Marc Downie.Ph.D