Idiomatic Patterns and Aesthetic Influence in Computer Music Languages

It is widely accepted that acoustic and digital musical instruments shape the cognitive processes of the performer on both embodied and conceptual levels, ultimately influencing the structure and aesthetics of the resulting performance. In this article we examine the ways in which computer music languages might similarly influence the aesthetic decisions of the digital music practitioner, even when those languages are designed for generality and theoretically capable of implementing any sound-producing process. We examine the basis for querying the non-neutrality of tools with a particular focus on the concept of idiomaticity: patterns of instruments or languages which are particularly easy or natural to execute in comparison to others. We then present correspondence with the developers of several major music programming languages and a survey of digital musical instrument creators examining the relationship between idiomatic patterns of the language and the characteristics of the resulting instruments and pieces. In an open-ended creative domain, asserting causal relationships is difficult and potentially inappropriate, but we find a complex interplay between language, instrument, piece and performance that suggests that the creator of the music programming language should be considered one party to a creative conversation that occurs each time a new instrument is designed.Peer reviewe

Vibrating instruments in virtual reality: A cohesive approach to the design of virtual reality musical instruments

This thesis presents the design, implementation and findings of a Virtual Reality Musical Instrument (VRMI). The project was done under the direction of the Sound and Physical Interaction (SOPI) research group. The project was made following an iterative design methodology and the metaphors and design patterns used in Ubiquitous Music Systems. In contrast with the fast adoption of Virtual Reality as a platform for new entertainment productions, it is noticeable that the area of new interfaces for musical expression (NIME) has been disbelieving towards this technology. At the same time, previous projects under the category of VRMI have made a clear distinction between the instrument, an external 3D model, and the user. Thereby, this thesis presents a project that focuses on how VR can enhance individual musical interaction? In order to do so, this project is directed to blurry the lines between performer, instrument and environment by creating immersion through 3D audio, audiovisual feedback, bodily and spatial interaction, the performer and the system's autonomous responses. As a final result, this thesis reaches to provide the NIME community with a purposeful use of Virtual Reality as an interactive musical platform

Go large: The impact of size on gestural interaction in digital musical instrument design

This research is about the impact on musical gestural interaction of over- sized Digital Musical Instrument (DMI) design, that is instruments with physical dimensions that are larger than the human body performing them, but smaller than the size of the room they are in. When interacting with an interface not only does the performer move their body to control the interface, the interface design and affordances control the way the performer moves their body. In the context of DMIs, two instruments with the same sonic capabilities will elicit different patterns of gestural inter- action depending on their physical layout. Using the methodology of designing instruments for the purpose of exploring research questions, this research ex- amines the gestural interaction and music made by musicians performing with large DMIs to investigate impact of instrument size on music making. In this thesis I propose a process of investigating gestural interaction and how it shapes compositional choices through two studies. Each study examines the relative effects on performance and composition of various factors of affordances and idiomatic gestural language performed with large DMIs. Studying performer interactions and music composed with large instruments with novel layouts that participants have not yet developed idiomatic gestural languages for results in new discoveries that are relevant to the design of large instruments as well as instruments of all sizes. This research is relevant for digital musical instrument designers and Human Computer Interaction researchers as it will elucidate the influence that a DMI’s physical size and layout has on the performances and compositions created using digital musical instruments, so that designers can make informed decisions to either support or suppress specific influences in future DMI design. Further, this research contributes the design of a new digital musical instrument, Chaos Bells, that can be used by digital musical instrument performers and researchers in the future

Interactive Sound in Performance Ecologies: Studying Connections among Actors and Artifacts

This thesis’s primary goal is to investigate performance ecologies, that is the compound of humans, artifacts and environmental elements that contribute to the result of a per- formance. In particular, this thesis focuses on designing new interactive technologies for sound and music. The goal of this thesis leads to the following Research Questions (RQs): • RQ1 How can the design of interactive sonic artifacts support a joint expression across different actors (composers, choreographers, and performers, musicians, and dancers) in a given performance ecology? • RQ2 How does each different actor influence the design of different artifacts, and what impact does this have on the overall artwork? • RQ3 How do the different actors in the same ecology interact, and appropriate an interactive artifact? To reply to these questions, a new framework named ARCAA has been created. In this framework, all the Actors of a given ecology are connected to all the Artifacts throughout three layers: Role, Context and Activity. This framework is then applied to one systematic literature review, two case studies on music performance and one case study in dance performance. The studies help to better understand the shaded roles of composers, per- formers, instrumentalists, dancers, and choreographers, which is relevant to better design interactive technologies for performances. Finally, this thesis proposes a new reflection on the blurred distinction between composing and designing a new instrument in a context that involves a multitude of actors. Overall, this work introduces the following contributions to the field of interaction design applied to music technology: 1) ARCAA, a framework to analyse the set of inter- connected relationship in interactive (music) performances, validated through 2 music studies, 1 dance study and 1 systematic literature analysis; 2) Recommendations for de- signing music interactive system for performance (music or dance), accounting for the needs of the various actors and for the overlapping on music composition and design of in- teractive technology; 3) A taxonomy of how scores have shaped performance ecologies in NIME, based on a systematic analysis of the literature on score in the NIME proceedings; 4) Proposal of a methodological approach combining autobiographical and idiographical design approaches in interactive performances.O objetivo principal desta tese é investigar as ecologias performativas, conjunto formado pelos participantes humanos, artefatos e elementos ambientais que contribuem para o resultado de uma performance. Em particular, esta tese foca-se na conceção de novas tecnologias interativas para som e música. O objetivo desta tese originou as seguintes questões de investigação (Research Questions RQs): • RQ1 Como o design de artefatos sonoros interativos pode apoiar a expressão con- junta entre diferentes atores (compositores, coreógrafos e performers, músicos e dançarinos) numa determinada ecologia performativa? • RQ2 Como cada ator influencia o design de diferentes artefatos e que impacto isso tem no trabalho artístico global? • RQ3 Como os diferentes atores de uma mesma ecologia interagem e se apropriam de um artefato interativo? Para responder a essas perguntas, foi criado uma nova framework chamada ARCAA. Nesta framework, todos os atores (Actores) de uma dada ecologia estão conectados a todos os artefatos (Artefacts) através de três camadas: Role, Context e Activity. Esta framework foi então aplicada a uma revisão sistemática da literatura, a dois estudos de caso sobre performance musical e a um estudo de caso em performance de dança. Estes estudos aju- daram a comprender melhor os papéis desempenhados pelos compositores, intérpretes, instrumentistas, dançarinos e coreógrafos, o que é relevante para melhor projetar as tec- nologias interativas para performances. Por fim, esta tese propõe uma nova reflexão sobre a distinção entre compor e projetar um novo instrumento num contexto que envolve uma multiplicidade de atores. Este trabalho apresenta as seguintes contribuições principais para o campo do design de interação aplicado à tecnologia musical: 1) ARCAA, uma framework para analisar o conjunto de relações interconectadas em performances interativas, validado através de dois estudos de caso relacionados com a música, um estudo de caso relacionado com a dança e uma análise sistemática da literatura; 2) Recomendações para o design de sistemas interativos musicais para performance (música ou dança), tendo em conta as necessidades dos vários atores e a sobreposição entre a composição musical e o design de tecnologia interactiva; 3) Uma taxonomia sobre como as partituras musicais moldaram as ecologias performativas no NIME, com base numa análise sistemática da literatura dos artigos apresentados e publicados nestas conferência; 4) Proposta de uma aborda- gem metodológica combinando abordagens de design autobiográfico e idiográfico em performances interativas

Motivating programming language design for digital lutherie

Digital lutherie is a sub-domain of digital craft focused on creating digital musical instruments: high-performance devices for musical expression. It represents a nuanced and challenging area of human-computer interaction that is well established and mature, offering the opportunity to observe designers’ work on highly demanding human-computer interfaces. Through the integration of instruments and computers, a new digital 'material' is introduced to the craft. And with a new medium comes new tools. Digital luthiers require expressive use of programming languages to draw together multiple different problem domains in creating new instruments. Motivated by initial explorations in programming language design, this thesis explores the motivations for tool choice in digital lutherie and inductively researches what characterises good programming language design for digital lutherie. Findings from 27 standardised open-ended interviews with prominent digital luthiers from commercial, research, independent and artistic backgrounds are analysed through reflexive thematic analysis. Our discussion explores their perspectives, generating a set of themes that are analysed and discussed. Through this process, a set of 'selective pressures' on language design is presented in order to help motivate and guide future language design in digital lutherie. We also present how challenges faced by digital luthiers relate to social creativity and meta-design, key components of end-user development. Some suggestions are also made to inspire strategies and approaches to programming language design

Subtlety and detail in digital musical instrument design

PhD thesisSubtlety and detail are fundamental to what makes musical instruments special, and worth dedicating a life’s practice to, for designer, maker, player and listener alike. While instruments are recognised and classified by form, it is the nuances of individual instruments that constitute their power to say what could not be said any other way. Digital musical instruments (DMI) have long been criticised as lacking expressive depth, but technology of sufficient fidelity now exists, which raises compelling questions. What can contemporary DMI designers learn from heritage practices about mastering subtlety and detail? What forms does this mastery take, and how can it be elucidated, compared and shared? Using DMI design tools, kits and activities as probes, this thesis addresses these questions from the perspectives of design, embodiment and craft. In a preliminary study, violin luthiers were asked about subtlety and detail in their practice and culture. The outcomes suggested that subtle details originate in the tacit and embodied realms, which are facilitated to develop by specific contexts, environments and materials. In the first study, attendees of a DMI research conference participated in a workshop reflecting on subtlety and detail. Attendees were divided into groups and explored the physical details of a DMI design kit, in an activity book ended by discussion. Responses focused on re-interpretations of instrumental identity, suggesting that the provided context motivated in the opposite direction to the original brief. In the second study, the same kit was deployed with single rather than co-located groups of digital luthiers, modifying instead the sound of the instrument via a Pure Data patch, and responses focused less on instrumental identity and more on gesture-sound mapping strategies. Provocatively, neither studies resulted in sustained focus on details, motivating a novel DMI probe and activity for individuals. In the third study, digital and traditional instrument makers, musicians and other creatives, were invited to handcraft the resonance models of a digital tuned percussion instrument using sculpting clay, responding to constrained briefs. Participants’ backgrounds deeply influenced their responses, and distinctive themes emerged related to aesthetics, tacit and embodied knowledge, and algorithmic pattern. This thesis introduces a scale-based ontology of DMI design, dividing detail into macro, meso and micro levels. Focusing on the micro scale, a series of reflections and suggestions are provided based on the investigations, for how DMI design practitioners, technologists and researchers can illuminate this domain, for the benefit of subtle and detailed digital musical expression

Contextualising Idiomatic Gestures in Musical Interactions with NIMEs

This paper introduces various ways that idiomatic gestures emerge in performance practice with new musical instruments. It demonstrates that idiomatic gestures can play an important role in the development of personalized performance practices that can be the basis for the development of style and expression. Three detailed examples – biocontrollers, accordion-inspired instruments, and a networked intelligent controller – illustrate how a complex suite of factors throughout the design, composition and performance processes can influence the development of idiomatic gestures. We argue that the explicit consideration of idiomatic gestures throughout the life cycle of new instruments can facilitate the emergence of style and give rise to performances that can develop rich layers of meaning.Peer reviewe

A Fractious Embrace: Rethinking Ecclesiastical Encounters with Contemporary Art

This thesis claims that in recent years a vibrant critical exchange between contemporary art and Christianity has been increasingly prompted through an accelerating programme of art installations and commissions for ecclesiastical spaces. Crucially, rather than a ‘religious art’ reflecting Christian ideology, as in an earlier age might have been expected, current practices frequently initiate interventions that question the values and traditions of the host space, or present objects and events that challenge its visual conventions. I will argue that this exchange offers potential for the mutual enrichment of both art and its sacred contexts, extending the limits of art and its value for the church. Inversely, I will allege that it has the negative potential to create new visual orthodoxies. In the light of these developments, the thesis asks, what are the conditions of possibility for art in ecclesiastical spaces, and how can these conditions be addressed? What viable language or strategies can be formulated to understand and enhance its role within the church? Focusing on concepts drawn from anthropology, comparative religion, art theory and twentieth-century philosophy, what this research attempts to formulate is a series of categories that develop an effective vocabulary with which to address the conditions for art projects now, and prospects for the future. The categories proposed are necessarily contingent, introduced as modes for thought rather than fixed conditions of experience, but with an aim to expand, as well as attempt to understand, the effective place for and experience of contemporary art in churches. The overarching theme is that of an encounter between contemporary artistic practices and media and ecclesiastical spaces, within a context in which art’s legitimacy continues to be contested at the same time that it is increasingly invited to take part in the life of the church

The French in London on-land and on-line: an ethnosemiotic analysis

This thesis challenges traditional international migration studies which focus on macro-level drivers or the end-point of the migration trajectory, and instead investigates the subtle forces within the “third-space” (Ingram & Abrahams, 2016:140, citing Bhabha, 1994), which here encompasses both the physical and virtual transnational environments inhabited by the French community in London. By combining innovative digital methods with ethnographically oriented data collection techniques, such as immersion, in-depth interviews and focus groups, the thesis reveals the inherently “messy” sociocultural complexities of being an EU migrant in London at the beginning of the 21st century. Taking Pierre Bourdieu’s concept of habitus (1972 [2000]; 1994; 1996; 2005) as its principal theoretical underpinning and drawing on his ethnographic and sociological works, the study scrutinises the narratives of a diverse group of French Londoners between 2010 and 2015. The overarching research question posed is how, holistically, participants experience France-London mobility, and spans three main areas: 1) France, or the originary social field; 2) the London home/habitus; and 3) the on-line French “diasberspace”. Beginning with the first of these, the thesis seeks to ascertain, through Bourdieu’s notion of symbolic violence (1993; Bourdieu & Wacquant, 1992), which social forces lie hidden beneath the veneer of reasoned migration decision-making and serve as tacit, yet potent, mobility drivers. Secondly, based on the hypothesis that habitus overlaps with the definition of “home” in English, the thesis asks how home is (re)constructed by the London-French research participants within the diasporic field. By sub-dividing the conception into its component parts of habitat (spatial mapping and material culture), habits (quotidian practices) and habituation (unsuspecting attitudinal change), questions pertaining to how, where and the extent to which participants identify with London as “home”, or conversely remain embedded in the “homeland”, are addressed. In addition, the thesis investigates the reasons behind the privileged position occupied by the French community in the London social space. It therefore draws connections between past and present forms and functionalities of symbolic/cultural capital (Bourdieu, (1979a, 1980b), together with linguistic capital/habitus (Bourdieu, 1982 [2001]), examining the differing symbolic value of embodied and articulated language in France and London. Finally, recognising that migration today involves less acute separation from the homeland than in previous generations due to the virtual proximity afforded by the Internet, this third part of the thesis assesses how home, belonging, identity, positioning and symbolic violence are depicted in the on-line “diasberspace”. In order to provide a stable analytical platform conducive to iterative consultation, the author has curated a Special Collection of community Web resources in the UK Web Archive, laying the foundations for a theory of selective thematic Web archiving. An innovative “ethnosemiotic” paradigm, combining Bourdieu’s ethnographic principles and the multimodal social semiotic approach advocated by Gunther Kress (2010), is thus given practical application. Furthermore, the ensuing fine-grained reading of the London-French digital objects serves as a convincing on-line/on-land triangulation mechanism for the doctoral research project as a whole, and contributes to the rich, multi-layered analysis of London’s contemporary French population