Reaching Cognitive Consensus with Improvisational Agents

A common approach to interactive narrative involves imbuing the computer with all of the potential story pre- authored story experiences (e.g. as beats, plot points, planning operators, etc.). This has resulted in an accepted paradigm where stories are not created by or with the user; rather, the user is given piecemeal access to the story from the gatekeeper of story knowledge: the computer (e.g. as an AI drama manager). This article describes a formal process that provides for the equal co-creation of story-rich experiences, where neither the user nor computer is in a privileged position in an interactive narrative. It describes a new formal approach that acts as a first step for the realtime co-creation of narrative in games that rely on the negotiated shared mental model between a human actor and an AI improv agent

Beyond the Electronic Connection: The Technologically Manufactured Cyber-Human and Its Physical Human Counterpart in Performance: A Theory Related to Convergence Identities

This thesis is an investigation of the complex processes and relationships between the physical human performer and the technologically manufactured cyber-human counterpart. I acted as both researcher and the physical human performer, deeply engaged in the moment-to-moment creation of events unfolding within a shared virtual reality environment. As the primary instigator and activator of the cyber-human partner, I maintained a balance between the live and technological performance elements, prioritizing the production of content and meaning. By way of using practice as research, this thesis argues that in considering interactions between cyber-human and human performers, it is crucial to move beyond discussions of technology when considering interactions between cyber-humans and human performers to an analysis of emotional content, the powers of poetic imagery, the trust that is developed through sensory perception and the evocation of complex relationships. A theoretical model is constructed to describe the relationship between a cyber-human and a human performer in the five works created specifically for this thesis, which is not substantially different from that between human performers. Technological exploration allows for the observation and analysis of various relationships, furthering an expanded understanding of ‘movement as content’ beyond the electronic connection. Each of the works created for this research used new and innovative technologies, including virtual reality, multiple interactive systems, six generations of wearable computers, motion capture technology, high-end digital lighting projectors, various projection screens, smart electronically charged fabrics, multiple sensory sensitive devices and intelligent sensory charged alternative performance spaces. They were most often collaboratively created in order to augment all aspects of the performance and create the sense of community found in digital live dance performances/events. These works are identified as one continuous line of energy and discovery, each representing a slight variation on the premise that a working, caring, visceral and poetic content occurs beyond the technological tools. Consequently, a shift in the physical human’s psyche overwhelms the act of performance. Scholarship and reflection on the works have been integral to my creative process throughout. The goals of this thesis, the works created and the resulting methodologies are to investigate performance to heighten the multiple ways we experience and interact with the world. This maximizes connection and results in a highly interactive, improvisational, dynamic, non-linear, immediate, accessible, agential, reciprocal, emotional, visceral and transformative experience without boundaries between the virtual and physical for physical humans, cyborgs and cyber-humans alike.College of Fine Arts at the University of Texas at Austin, Department of Theatre & Dance at the University of Texas at Austi

Use What We Have : Ways to Contextualize and Improvise in the Classroom

The purpose of this action research project was to study my own teaching and find out what I could learn about how trauma affects my classes, how I can meet the challenges my students face and how I can playfully and respectfully assist them on their learning journey. The questions I asked myself that guided my research were: 1) In what ways does my teaching practice change when I approach it with a more trauma-informed lens than a less trauma-informed lens? 2) What are the different outcomes when I approach my lesson delivery with a more playful approach than with a less playful approach? and 3) In what ways do improvisational practices help my teaching from getting stagnant? I collected data from my own personal journals as I did my practicum over the last three terms, the comments from the formal observations I had and the commentaries I wrote for the planning, instruction and assessment tasks of my edTPA. As a music teacher, one of the most important lessons I teach is one of self-acceptance. Throughout the year, it became apparent that my students needed reprieve from the daily turmoil they faced. In the case of some, they encountered two simultaneous pandemics - one after their physical health and another after their mental, emotional and spiritual health. I see my position as one who can aid in the internal struggle, as music is a healing force. This process has helped me recognize the strengths and limitations that I face going into my teaching career. Being reflective and seeing myself through the lens of this research has transformed me, and the classrooms I meet with in the coming years will feel the effects of my findings here. We all have the ability to shape our futures - we have to be willing to stand the discomfort of not knowing long enough for the new reality to come alive in us

Creative Management: Disciplining the Neoliberal Worker

This integrated article dissertation examines some of the new managerial practices that have emerged to handle cognitive capitalism’s ongoing need for creative, flexible labour power. The three articles included in this dissertation offer a glimpse into the widespread processes employed by management to regulate and discipline a workforce that must also be granted a degree of relative flexibility, creativity, and autonomy in order to be effective under post-Fordist conditions of production. The first chapter looks at the emergence of corporate improvisational training at the turn of the twenty-first century as an attempt to cultivate flexible and innovative workers, a move that ultimately succumbs to what Andre Spicer (2013) calls “organizational bullshit”—the deployment of cynical and self-serving discourse that functions to build confidence and legitimacy within workplaces where a clear sense of occupational purpose is lacking. Chapter two explores the recent trend of workplace mindfulness as a specific element of the now-prevalent \u27wellness\u27 discourses, which inevitably work to align workers\u27 personal values with those of their employer. The final chapter involves an analysis of the working conditions of voice-over and motion capture actors in the video game industry and the processes of rationalization and neo-taylorization to which they are subjected

Improvisation and Social Aesthetics

Addressing a wide range of improvised art and music forms—from jazz and cinema to dance and literature—this volume's contributors locate improvisation as a key site of mediation between the social and the aesthetic. As a catalyst for social experiment and political practice, improvisation aids in the creation, contestation, and codification of social realities and identities. Among other topics, the contributors discuss the social aesthetics of the Association for the Advancement of Creative Musicians, the Feminist Improvising Group, and contemporary Malian music, as well as the virtual sociality of interactive computer music, the significance of "uncreative" improvisation, responses to French New Wave cinema, and the work of figures ranging from bell hooks and Billy Strayhorn to Kenneth Goldsmith

The Metaphysics of Improvisation

In The Metaphysics of Improvisation, I criticize wrongheaded metaphysical views of, and theories about, improvisation, and put forward a cogent metaphysical theory of improvisation, which includes action theory, an analysis of the relevant genetic and aesthetic properties, and ontology (work-hood). The dissertation has two Parts. Part I is a survey of the history of many improvisational practices, and of the concept of improvisation. Here I delineate, sketch, and sort out the often vague boundaries between improvising and non-improvising within many art forms and genres, including music, dance, theatre, motion pictures, painting, and literature. In addition, I discuss the concept of non-artistic improvisation in various contexts. I attempt to portray an accurate picture of how improvisation functions, or does not function, in various art forms and genres. Part II addresses metaphysical issues in, and problems and questions of, improvisation in the arts. I argue that that continuum and genus-species models are the most cogent ways to understand the action-types of improvising and composing and their relations. I demonstrate that these models are substantiated by an informed investigation and phenomenology of improvisational practice, action theory conceptual analysis, cognitive neuroscience studies and experiments, cognitive psychology studies and models, and some theories of creativity. In addition, I provide a constraint based taxonomy for classifying improvisations that is compatible with, and supports, the continuum model. Next, I address epistemological and ontological issues involving the genetic properties of improvisations, and the properties improvisatory, and as if improvised. Finally, I show that arguments against treating, or classifying, improvisations as works are weak or erroneous, and by focusing on music, I provide a correct ontological theory of work-hood for artistic improvisations

Digital transformation in an incumbent organisation: the co-enactment of digital transformation through macro- and micro-level activities

Digital transformation forms an important organisational response to digital technologies and their potential digital disruptions. Especially incumbent organisations face the risk of a diminished market position if they fail to digitally transform as competitors use of digital technologies disrupts business models and affects consumer behaviour. Digital disruptions pressure incumbent organisations’ brick and mortar businesses and have already shaken established companies to the ground (e.g. Nokia or Kodak), while pushing others to the brink (e.g. the music industry). These downfalls and trends signal the importance of incumbent organisations engaging in their digital transformation in order to retain their market position. By engaging in their digital transformation, incumbent organisations seek to implement significant changes to their methods of organising by combining multiple digital technologies. The literature on organisational digital transformation sketches three areas of concern: digital transformation strategy, organisational changes (to both value proposition and internal structures) and digital technology. Across these areas of concern, it has delved into organisational activities at either the macro or the micro level of organising. Macro-level studies seem to overshadow the importance of micro-level activities that underlie them. That is, focusing on a phenomenon’s grand scheme, such studies pay little attention to the micro-level activities that enact the phenomenon. On the other hand, micro-level studies tend to miss the relation and influence that a macro-level phenomenon has on the micro level and its constitution of the macro level. They focus on the micro-level activities, neglecting the broader rules and resources that macro-level activities provide. Conceiving digital transformation as a mixed- level phenomenon occurring at both and across the organisational macro and micro levels, we thus cannot fully understand its enactment focusing on either macro- or micro-level activities but only through studying their co-enactment. This dissertation investigates how organisational activities co-enact digital transformation. Drawing on three theoretical angles – improvisation theory, institutional theory and digital infrastructures, it studies organisational activities within the literature’s three areas of concern. Acknowledging the mixed-level nature of digital transformation, it focuses on activities at both the macro and the microlevels of organising. Methodologically, it builds on an ethnography of a large European car manufacturer, an incumbent in its field, which engages in its digital transformation. This ethnographic study took place over a period of three years (from July 2017 to June 2020) and comprised participant observations and both formal and informal interviews as well as the collection of archival records. The findings from the empirical material revealed an interplay between macro- and micro-level activities which co-enacts the car manufacturer’s digital transformation. Conceptualising this interplay, this dissertation contributes to digital transformation research offering the concepts of framing and concretising to understand and explain the becoming of digital transformation as co-enactment. Framing creates space and projects direction for digital transformation. Concretising renders propositions and realisations which manifest organisational digital transformation. Accordingly, digital transformation becomes co-enacted in an interplay of macro-level activities framing micro-level activities, and micro-level activities concretising macro-level activities. The co-enactment conceptualisation emphasises digital transformation’s mixed-level nature, thus proposing the need to observe approaches suitable to further unpack and better understand the phenomenon’s becoming through the interplaying activities of framing and concretising.Digitaalinen transformaation vakiintuneen markkina-aseman organisaatiossa: Digitaalisen transformaation yhteistoiminnallistaminen makro- ja mikrotason toimintojen välillä Digitaalinen transformaatio on merkityksellinen organisationaalinen reaktio digitaalisiin murroksiin, jotka digitaaliset teknologiat ovat mahdollistaneet. Jos vakiintuneet organisaatiot epäonnistuvat muuntautumaan digitaalisesti, kun niiden kilpailijat luovat uusia liiketoimintamalleja ja vaikuttavat kuluttajakäyttäytymiseen, niille markkina-asema voi mahdollisesti heikentyä. Digitaaliset murrokset painostavat vakiintuneessa markkina-asemassa olevien organisaatioiden kivijalkaliiketoimintaa, koska ne ovat jo murskanneet etabloituneita yrityksiä (esim. Nokia tai Kodak) sekä ajaneet toisia ahtaalle (esim. musiikkiteollisuus). Nämä kukistumiset ja suuntaukset viestittävät vakiintuneessa markkina-asemassa oleville organisaatioille digitaaliseen transformaatioon ryhtymisen tärkeyttä niiden yrittäessä pitää markkinapositiotaan. Digitaaliseen transformaatioon ryhtyessään vakiintuneessa markkina-asemassa olevat organisaatiot yrittävät toteuttaa merkittäviä muutoksia organisointiinsa yhdistelemällä useita digitaalisia teknologioita. Tutkittaessa tätä prosessia, organisaation digitaalista transformaatiota käsittelevä kirjallisuus hahmottelee kolme aihealuetta: digitaalinen transformaatiostrategia, organisationaaliset muutokset (sekä arvolupaukseen että sisäisiin rakenteisiin) sekä digitaaliset teknologiat. Näiden aihealueiden sisällä aikaisempi kirjallisuus on syventynyt joko makro- tai mikrotason organisointiin tarkastellessaan organisaation toimintaa. Makrotason tutkimukset kuitenkin näyttävät jättävän varjoonsa niiden taustalla olevan mikrotason toiminnan tärkeyden. Toisin sanoen, jos keskitytään ilmiön suureen kuvaan, tutkimukset eivät kiinnitä riittävästi huomiota mikrotason toimintaan, joka toiminnallistaa ilmiön. Toisaalta mikrotason tutkimukset taas usein eivät huomaa makrotason ilmiön yhteyttä ja vaikutuksia mikrotasoon ja makrotason rakenteisiin. Ne keskittyvät mikrotason toimintaan laiminlyöden laajemmat suuntaviivat ja resurssit, mitkä makrotason toiminnalla taataan. Kun digitaalinen transformaatio ymmärretään monitasoisena ilmiönä, joka tulee esille sekä organisaatioiden makro- ja mikrotasoilla että myös niiden välillä, emme voi ymmärtää sen toiminnallistamista keskittymällä joko makro- tai mikrotason toimintaan vaan ainoastaan tutkimalla niiden yhteistoiminnallistamista. Tämä väitöskirja tutkii kuinka organisationaalinen toiminta yhteistoiminnallistaa digitaalista transformaatiota. Käyttäen kolmea teoreettista näkökulmaa – improvisaatioteoriaa, institutionaalista teoriaa ja digitaalisia infrastruktuureja – se tutkii organisationaalista toimintaa kolmen mainitun kirjallisuuden aihealueen sisällä. Se keskittyy toimintaan sekä organisoinnin makro- että mikrotasoilla tunnustaen digitaalisen transformaation monitasoisen luonteen. Metodologisesti se pohjautuu etnografiaan suuressa eurooppalaisessa autonvalmistajayrityksessä, vakiintuneessa asemassa toimialallaan, joka ryhtyy digitaaliseen transformaatioon. Tämä etnografinen tutkimus tehtiin kolmen vuoden aikana (heinäkuusta 2017 – heinäkuuhun 2020) ja sen aineisto koostuu osallistuvasta havainnoinnista, virallisista ja epävirallisista haastatteluista sekä kokoelmasta arkistotietoja. Empiirisen tutkimuksen tulokset paljastivat makro- ja mikrotason toimintojen vuorovaikutuksen, jotka yhteistoiminnallistavat autonvalmistajan digitaalisen transformaation. Käsitteellistettäessä tätä vuorovaikutusta, tämä väitöskirja edistää digitaalista transformaatiotutkimusta tarjotessaan kehystämisen ja konkretisoinnin käsitteet, joilla voidaan ymmärtää ja selittää digitaalisen transformaation tulemista yhteistoiminnallistamiseksi. Kehystäminen luo tilaa ja tuo esiin digitaalisen transformaation suuntaa. Konkretisointi tarjoaa ehdotuksia ja oivalluksia, jotka ilmaisevat organisaation digitaalista transformaatiota. Tällä tavoin digitaalinen transformaatio tulee yhteistoiminnallistettua makrotason toimintojen kehystäessä mikrotason toimintaa sekä mikrotason toimintojen konkretisoidessa makrotason toimintaa ja näiden vuorovaikutuksessa. Yhteistoiminnallistamisen käsite painottaa digitaalisen transformaation monitasoista luonnetta ja kehottaa jatkotutkimusta etsimään sopivia lähestymistapoja ilmiön esiintymiselle kehystämisen ja konkretisoinnin vuorovaikutuksessa, jotta sitä voitaisiin edelleen selvittää ja ymmärtää paremmin

Poetics of Reception: a phenomenological aesthetics of bodies and technology in performance

This study examines the provocative claim by Performance Studies theorist Philip Auslander (1999) that there is no ontological distinction between live and mediatised forms because they participate in the same cultural economy. This claim has led to something of a stagnation of debate between, on the one hand, scholars who privilege the live over the mediatised and on the other those who extinguish the live in favour of mediatisation. Moving beyond the limitations of ontology, this project proposes and develops a phenomenological aesthetics in order to investigate the essential structures and modes of experienced phenomena from within audience. The phenomenological approach understands the complexity and dynamism of the relationship between bodies and technologies in performance, reorienting the investigation away from a rehearsal of established and unhelpful ontological positions. The methodology for the project draws primarily upon methods from the N orth-American tradition of practical phenomenology (Herbert Spiegelberg, Edward S. Casey, Don Ihde, and Anthony Steinbock), and the transcendental philosophy of Edmund Husserl. Through a series of specially designed workshops, in which audience participants are trained in phenomenological techniques of bracketing and attention, A Poetics of Reception tests the potential of practical phenomenology to break the ontological impasse set up by Auslander. The method elicits the grasping of experiences of embodiment, kinesthetic empathy, temporality, orientation, imagination and poetic language. Participants were trained and required to write their experiences of the interaction between bodies and performance technologies, creating texts that then underwent hermeneutic analysis. The results of this interpretation yielded six interactive encounters, and revealed the constituted structures and modes of the relational phenomena experienced in performance by the participants. This study’s methodology has both practical and philoso! phical i mplications, including its proposed use as an audience-based dramaturgy for digital performance, and a method of inquiry into the kinesthetic dimensions of aesthetic experience

Performative Methodologies: Geographies of Emotion and Affect in Digital Storytelling Workshops

This thesis advocates digital storytelling as a geographical methodology to understand how emotion and affect are produced. Digital storytelling is a flexible and workshopped methodology that captures experimental, creative and imaginative performances of emotion and affect. Through digital storytelling geographers may build understandings of how emotion and affect are experienced individually and collectively. I use 11 digital storytelling workshops, with more than 100 participants, as the primary sites for my research. The workshops were conducted in the United States and New Zealand and were modelled on the practice established by the Center for Digital Storytelling in Berkeley, California, United States. It is argued that digital storytelling workshops co-create emotion, affect, people and place. Individual and group interviews, reflexive autobiographical journal writing, and digital storytelling workshop training, participation, and observing are used to access emotion and affect in digital storytelling workshops. A combination of qualitative research methods and critical social theories are used to highlight embodied, emotional and affectual geographies. Three findings frame my discussion. First, digital storytelling workshops are performative spaces for the staging and circulation of emotion and affect. The concepts of infrastructure, improvisation, and intimacy are critical for understanding the dynamic nature of emotion and affect in digital storytelling workshops. Second, a focus on relationality allows for an examination of psychotherapeutic practice and the transformative capacity of digital storytelling workshops. Workshop spaces are understood as ‘connective mediums’ in which a third position – the gap between the flow of emotions and the representation of that experience - is possible. Third, voice in digital storytelling is a political process of speaking and listening. A focus on voice permits an exploration of the acoustic politics of emotion and affect at individual and collective spatial scales. Digital storytelling workshops facilitate processes of seeing, hearing and experiencing emotion and affect as a way of interpreting the geographical worlds of research participants. The Center for Digital Storytelling’s model incorporates a commitment to social justice that honours and values emotional knowledge. As a practice-based research methodology digital storytelling requires researchers to be reflexive and negotiate their multiply layered ethical positionings. As geographers continue to experiment with innovative ways of conducting research, the messiness of digital storytelling can contribute to methodological debates about the ‘doing’ of emotion and affect in geographical research