Structured reciprocity for musical performance with swarm agents as a generative mechanism

A creative inquiry introduces a swarm simulation as a generative mechanism, providing a third agency in music creation alongside agency of composition and performance. When applying an evolutionary model such as swarms to music the challenge is to develop a performance interaction model beyond improvised explorations so that the model can facilitate the integrities for, and emerging dynamics in, all agencies. To minimize a performer’s cognitive overload another challenge is management of dataflow in interactive architecture for generating music. An interaction model for structured reciprocity is investigated as a design solution that applies model-based indirection. In the scope of musical composition, reciprocity is exhibited as a time dependent relationship between a performer’s actions and evolutionary swarm tendencies applied to generate musical outcomes. Reciprocity is structured using levels of indirection as a construct of mapping data from a swarm simulation to an interactive music performance application. The paper presents an approach to encoding, activating, generating and measuring reciprocity. A comparative case study demonstrates the implementation of these concepts in two musical works. The paper concludes 1) reciprocity in interactive applications helps optimize actions to leverage emergent tendencies, including their intuitive qualities, towards realizing desired outcomes; and 2) data analysis from the case study indicates temporal signatures of reciprocity are related to indirection in interaction scenarios for generative musical performance