1,688 research outputs found

    Free associative composition: Practice led research into composition techniques that help enable free association.

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    The original compositions presented in this portfolio are the product of practice led research into developing and implementing composition techniques that enable free association. This com-mentary outlines the different approaches I have taken and the reasoning behind them

    “A place of images, plus sounds” (Chion, 1994)

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    The performance is a live experimentation using an interface that facilitates real-time audiovisual collage. Based on an original concept for audio-collage, Unrealtime (MAAP 2017), this expansion into the sphere of live visual editing brings into question many practices for the improviser. Through a series of Max-based audiovisual improvisations, the performance explores how the act of simultaneously improvising over two expressive mediums challenges the perceptual expectations of both performer and audience. The materials used range in abstraction, including both improvised and found audiovisual content. Aiming to probe Michel Chion’s assertion that “there is no image track and no soundtrack in the cinema, but a place of images, plus sounds” (Chion, 1994), the live experimentations will attempt to utilise audiovisual consonance and dissonance in different combinations to produce on-the-fly emergences of abstract or arbitrary narratives. What kinds of conceptual and perceptual hierarchies, such as the perceived dominance of image over sound, emerge or remain suppressed? Can a human computer interface assist in the translation of musical aesthetics, such as non-idiomatic improvisation, into the realm of a visual aesthetic that evolves in real time

    Sensorial perception: empowering dance practice embodiment through live and virtual environments

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    A thesis submitted for the Masters of Arts by Research At the University of Bedfordshire, United KingdomThis thesis presents a phenomenological study exploring the practice of creating movement in live and virtual environments. The title of this study is Sensory Perception: Empowering dance embodiment through live and virtual environments. The aims of this study are: to experience the sensorial embodiment within live and virtual environments; and to understand the cognitive responses to a set of visual moving images that are mediated through the visual perception of the participant. This study was conducted by the author Lucie Lee in 2012-2013 at the University of Bedfordshire. The theoretical underpinning for this study used mainly two French phenomenological philosophers Maurice Merleau-Ponty (1859-1941) and Henri Louis Bergeson (1908-1961). This thesis discusses other cultural theories, which were contextualised in theoretical and practical approaches to this study such as post-modernism in dance, Liveness defined by Philip Auslander (1999) and Embodying theory (1998) described by Sarah Rubidge. The other component of this practice led research focuses on cognitive science. This study uses the software developed by Mark Coniglio founder of Troika Ranch Dance Company, call Isadora. This software provides the level of interaction needed for this study. Although the software was developed for creative application of technology in performance, in this investigation it acts as a research tool. Through the software’s applications the explorative creative tasks were interactive and utilised in the live and virtual environments. This practice-led research adopts the methodology of practice as research and an approach developed by performance theorist Professor Robin Nelson (2006). It also draws on the improvisatory processes of two American dancers and practitioners Alma Hawkins (1991) and Anna Halprin (1995). The improvisation technique deployed in this study is directly linked to Feldenkrais Method (1972). The explorative tasks were practically undertaken by a dancer in order to explore the role of sensory perception with improvisatory context. Wassily Kandinsky’s (1866-1984) works were used as a stimulus within this method to engage the performer in the use of colours and objects within creative tasks. In conclusion, the thesis highlights the importance of the development within the practice-led process of the processes and methods undertaken by the researcher and dancer. The summary of findings of this research created several practical improvisatory short scores with ten minute durations. The future developments of this research study are outlined in this conclusion chapter

    Improvisation, Computers, and Interaction : Rethinking Human-Computer Interaction Through Music

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    Interaction is an integral part of all music. Interaction is part of listening, of playing, of composing and even of thinking about music. In this thesis the multiplicity of modes in which one may engage interactively in, through and with music is the starting point for rethinking Human-Computer Interaction in general and Interactive Music in particular. I propose that in Human-Computer interaction the methodology of control, interaction-as-control, in certain cases should be given up in favor for a more dynamic and reciprocal mode of interaction, interaction-as-difference: Interaction as an activity concerned with inducing differences that make a difference. Interaction-as-difference suggests a kind of parallelity rather than click-and-response. In essence, the movement from control to difference was a result of rediscovering the power of improvisation as a method for organizing and constructing musical content and is not to be understood as an opposition: It is rather a broadening of the more common paradigm of direct manipulation in Human-Computer Interaction. Improvisation is at the heart of all the sub-projects included in this thesis, also, in fact, in those that are not immediately related to music but more geared towards computation. Trusting the self-organizing aspect of musical improvisation, and allowing it to diffuse into other areas of my practice, constitutes the pivotal change that has radically influenced my artistic practice. Furthermore, is the work-in-movement (re-)introduced as a work kind that encompasses radically open works. The work-in-movement, presented and exemplified by a piece for guitar and computer, requires different modes of representation as the traditional musical score is too restrictive and is not able to communicate that which is the most central aspect: the collaboration, negotiation and interaction. The Integra framework and the relational database model with its corresponding XML representation is proposed as a means to produce annotated scores that carry past performances and version with it. The common nominator, the prerequisite, for interaction-as-difference and a improvisatory and self-organizing attitude towards musical practice it the notion of giving up of the Self. Only if the Self is able and willing to accept the loss the priority of interpretation (as for the composer) or the faithfulness to ideology or idiomatics (performer). Only is one is willing to forget is interaction-as-difference made possible. Among the artistic works that have been produced as part of this inquiry are some experimental tools in the form of computer software to support the proposed concepts of interactivity. These, along with the more traditional musical work make up both the object and the method in this PhD project. These sub-projects contained within the frame of the thesis, some (most) of which are still works-in-progress, are used to make inquiries into the larger question of the significance of interaction in the context of artistic practice involving computers

    A practice-led investigation into improvising music in contemporary Western culture

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    This thesis presents improvised practice with accompanying contextualisation alongside a discussion of the broader issues involved in improvising music in contemporary Western culture. The first chapter explores aesthetic and philosophical issues relating to improvisation in general while also establishing a context for the practice that follows. Starting by examining the role of a musical instrument in an improvising situation, this chapter goes on to discuss how improvisation challenges distinctions such as art and craft or subject and object. The issues of risk, vulnerability, dialogue and collaboration are then considered leading to an exploration of the role that memory, the familiar and habit play in improvisation. The chapter finishes with an investigation into the relationship between ethics and improvisation. The second chapter consists of improvised practice presented as four separate projects: The Quartet, Spock, CCCU Scratch Orchestra and a duo with Matthew Wright. Each of these projects consists of a commentary discussing particular issues raised through this research followed by the presentation of the relevant improvised practice. This practice is documented through and presented in the form of audio recordings. A concluding section reprises and identifies the overall themes of the thesis and provides contextualisation for the final live performance that forms an important practical component of this research

    The Metaphysics of Improvisation

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    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
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