Case Studies Portfolio submitted as application for Senior Fellowship of the Higher Education Academy (SFHEA) (D3)

Having a lifelong interest in knowledge and learning, I view the claims and practices of education and higher education practices with active and interested skepticism, which comes out of a profound optimism – that what we have now is not the best we could have. Higher education should always be in the best interests of the individual being educated, tempered by the interests of society at large; above all, education should do no harm. It seems to me that this “bottom up” approach, whereby improving the thinking abilities of individuals improves the behavior of whole societies is the primary reason for the expensive activity of education. Economic research indicates correlations between education and state prosperity (Berger and Fisher 2013) though benefits of increased productivity may not necessarily be equally distributed. Furthermore, the causal mechanisms at play are not finely elucidated

Methodology for the production and delivery of generative music for the personal listener : systems for realtime generative music production

This thesis will describe a system for the production of generative music through specific methodology, and provide an approach for the delivery of this material. The system and body of work will be targeted specifically at the personal listening audience. As the largest current consumer of music in all genres of music, this represents the largest and most applicable market to develop such a system for. By considering how recorded media compares to concert performance, it is possible to ascertain which attributes of performance may be translated to a generative media. In addition, an outline of how fixed media has changed how people listen to music directly will be considered. By looking at these concepts an attempt is made to create a system which satisfies societies need for music which is not only commodified and easily approached, but also closes the qualitative gap between a static delivery medium and concert based output. This is approached within the context of contemporary classical music. Furthermore, by considering the development and fragmentation of the personal listening audience through technological developments, a methodology for the delivery of generative media to a range of devices will be investigated. A body of musical work will be created which attempts to realise these goals in a qualitative fashion. These works will span the development of the composition methodology, and the algorithmic methods covered. A conclusion based on the possibilities of each system with regard to its qualitative output will form the basis for evaluation. As this investigation is seated within the field of music, the musical output and composition methodology will be considered as the primary deciding factor of a system's feasibility. The contribution of this research to the field will be a methodology for the composition and production of algorithmic music in realtime, and a feasible method for the delivery of this music to a wide audience

Multiple paths. Towards a performance practice in computer music

This research project proposes multiple paths towards the development of a performance practice in computer music. It starts with the author’s transition from traditional instrumentalist to electronic musician, assessing the roles of composer, performer and instrument builder as integrated in computer music practice. Three of the case studies presented in this thesis suggest approaches to understand the notion of interpretation with electronic instruments, introducing the methods of reconstruction, reinterpretation and re-appropriation as applied to the performance of music by Cage, Feldman and Nono. The remaining five case studies deal with the author’s own creations, developed on the basis of concepts such as mapping, sonification, historical contextualisation and spatialisation, and informed by the multithreaded role of the computer music practitioner. The situation of the performer of electronic instruments in relation to traditional instrumentalists is a topic of consideration throughout this thesis, informing the final conclusions as well as refuelling the questioning for future work.Research in and through artistic practic

Resistant environments: technologically mediated empowerment networks in extradisciplinary performance

PhD Thesis: Multimedia items accompanying this thesis to be consulted at Robinson LibraryThe proliferation in improvised performance of chance strategies, game-like scores, playful exercises, one-off collaborations, prepared, new and hacked instruments suggests a ubiquitous commitment to excavate unforeseen creative possibilities that exist beyond the edge of consciousness. Such strategies are deployed to resist mastery and bring forth the possibility for collision out of which fractures emanate allowing the unfamiliar to flow forth. In this research project I draw upon my experience of sitesufficient extradisciplinary performance to unpack the mechanisms at work in these strategies. The proceeding theoretical discourse initially draws upon the interrelated notions of habitus and norm-circles to illuminate the manner in which dispositions to act are inculcated in the individual and conditioned by the socio-cultural environment to which they are exposed. The aesthetics of liminal phenomena reveal the theatre as a site in which to interrogate these habitual behaviours. This discourse is shown to be too narrow to account for embodied disciplinary-specific performance vocabularies, however, further insights are gained from contemporary cognitive science. The theory of autopoiesis specifies that the individual is fundamentally embodied, bringing forth meaning in the world through perceptually guided action. We see that the body permeates cognition, conditioning our understanding of the world. The notions of external scaffolding and epistemic action are introduced and express the way in which the environment is manipulated to empower the individual. The theory of affordances is subsequently deployed to articulate the perceptual and actional fields available to the individual with respect to their environment. Subsequently this discourse enriches our understanding of the way in which environments constitute networks of empowerment. This theoretical discourse is exemplified in the practical experiments conducted during this research project. Performance technologies associated with electronic music are deployed to create environments for collaborative performance – sites that empower the individual as an extradisciplinary performer.CETL Postvernacular Music Scholarship

Spatial auditory display for acoustics and music collections

PhDThis thesis explores how audio can be better incorporated into how people access information and does so by developing approaches for creating three-dimensional audio environments with low processing demands. This is done by investigating three research questions. Mobile applications have processor and memory requirements that restrict the number of concurrent static or moving sound sources that can be rendered with binaural audio. Is there a more e cient approach that is as perceptually accurate as the traditional method? This thesis concludes that virtual Ambisonics is an ef cient and accurate means to render a binaural auditory display consisting of noise signals placed on the horizontal plane without head tracking. Virtual Ambisonics is then more e cient than convolution of HRTFs if more than two sound sources are concurrently rendered or if movement of the sources or head tracking is implemented. Complex acoustics models require signi cant amounts of memory and processing. If the memory and processor loads for a model are too large for a particular device, that model cannot be interactive in real-time. What steps can be taken to allow a complex room model to be interactive by using less memory and decreasing the computational load? This thesis presents a new reverberation model based on hybrid reverberation which uses a collection of B-format IRs. A new metric for determining the mixing time of a room is developed and interpolation between early re ections is investigated. Though hybrid reverberation typically uses a recursive lter such as a FDN for the late reverberation, an average late reverberation tail is instead synthesised for convolution reverberation. Commercial interfaces for music search and discovery use little aural information even though the information being sought is audio. How can audio be used in interfaces for music search and discovery? This thesis looks at 20 interfaces and determines that several themes emerge from past interfaces. These include using a two or three-dimensional space to explore a music collection, allowing concurrent playback of multiple sources, and tools such as auras to control how much information is presented. A new interface, the amblr, is developed because virtual two-dimensional spaces populated by music have been a common approach, but not yet a perfected one. The amblr is also interpreted as an art installation which was visited by approximately 1000 people over 5 days. The installation maps the virtual space created by the amblr to a physical space

Understanding sorting algorithms using music and spatial distribution

This thesis is concerned with the communication of information using auditory techniques. In particular, a music-based interface has been used to communicate the operation of a number of sorting algorithms to users. This auditory interface has been further enhanced by the creation of an auditory scene including a sound wall, which enables the auditory interface to utilise music parameters in conjunction with 2D/3D spatial distribution to communicate the essential processes in the algorithms. The sound wall has been constructed from a grid of measurements using a human head to create a spatial distribution. The algorithm designer can therefore communicate events using pitch, rhythm and timbre and associate these with particular positions in space. A number of experiments have been carried out to investigate the usefulness of music and the sound wall in communicating information relevant to the algorithms. Further, user understanding of the six algorithms has been tested. In all experiments the effects of previous musical experience has been allowed for. The results show that users can utilise musical parameters in understanding algorithms and that in all cases improvements have been observed using the sound wall. Different user performance was observed with different algorithms and it is concluded that certain types of information lend themselves more readily to communication through auditory interfaces than others. As a result of the experimental analysis, recommendations are given on how to improve the sound wall and user understanding by improved choice of the musical mappings

Real-time sound synthesis on a multi-processor platform

Real-time sound synthesis means that the calculation and output of each sound sample for a channel of audio information must be completed within a sample period. At a broadcasting standard, a sampling rate of 32,000 Hz, the maximum period available is 31.25 μsec. Such requirements demand a large amount of data processing power. An effective solution for this problem is a multi-processor platform; a parallel and distributed processing system. The suitability of the MIDI [Music Instrument Digital Interface] standard, published in 1983, as a controller for real-time applications is examined. Many musicians have expressed doubts on the decade old standard's ability for real-time performance. These have been investigated by measuring timing in various musical gestures, and by comparing these with the subjective characteristics of human perception. An implementation and its optimisation of real-time additive synthesis programs on a multi-transputer network are described. A prototype 81-polyphonic-note- organ configuration was implemented. By devising and deploying monitoring processes, the network's performance was measured and enhanced, leading to an efficient usage; the 88-note configuration. Since 88 simultaneous notes are rarely necessary in most performances, a scheduling program for dynamic note allocation was then introduced to achieve further efficiency gains. Considering calculation redundancies still further, a multi-sampling rate approach was applied as a further step to achieve an optimal performance. The theories underlining sound granulation, as a means of constructing complex sounds from grains, and the real-time implementation of this technique are outlined. The idea of sound granulation is quite similar to the quantum-wave theory, "acoustic quanta". Despite the conceptual simplicity, the signal processing requirements set tough demands, providing a challenge for this audio synthesis engine. Three issues arising from the results of the implementations above are discussed; the efficiency of the applications implemented, provisions for new processors and an optimal network architecture for sound synthesis

Framing privacy: architectural representation in digital spaces

Individual privacy can be compromised in digitally mediated spaces, as networked communication has made scales of interaction and degrees of visibility difficult to grasp. This inquiry argues that privacy is a spatially-conditioned mental construct and tests architectural representation as a means of orienting the individual online through spatial design practice on three scales, from the miniature to the room and the neighbourhood. Framed by the methodology of architectural representation, privacy online offers the narrative hook and driver for research. This identifies principles underlying architectural practice that can contribute to understandings of digital spaces of interaction, such as online social networking platforms, from the point-of-view of a designer-researcher. The research has been developed under the umbrella of the Creative Exchange, a national AHRC-funded knowledge exchange hub enabling interdisciplinary and inter-organisational collaboration between academia and industry. Asking how different scales of architectural representation can help to orient the individual in digital spaces, ‘methods of spatialisation’ aim to render tangible and experiential a range of observations of the digital; they result in miniature artifacts, immersive installations and interactive hybrid digital-physical platforms. Through methods of inquiry, including Donald Schön’s methods of reflective practice and the ‘design situation’, these operate as a lens on to the digital. Instead of aiming to reconceptualise privacy itself, it is considered as symptomatic of the challenges brought about by digital spaces, and informs means of evaluation. The original contribution the research makes to knowledge in the field of design research at the intersection of architecture and communication design lies in adapting architectural representation for digital contexts: it develops approaches rooted in architecture and aims to frame them for interdisciplinary design contexts engaging with digital spaces. The resulting framework brings together the key foundational architectural parameters of scale, distance and time, and three design methods of spatialisation: miniaturisation, immersion and mapping. These help to reframe challenges of digital communication – such as privacy online – from the perspective of the designer-researcher. Through the practice-led inquiry, digital settings that are not easily grasped intuitively are framed as new contexts for architectural expertise, helping to establish the efficacy of architectural representation in addressing challenges of the digital through reflective design processes