Morton Subotnick\u27s Ghost Scores: Interaction and Performance with Music Technology

This thesis investigates the ghost works of Morton Subotnick and their contribution to the world of sound art and electronic music technologies. Subotnick\u27s work in this area is an integral part of his outstanding achievements, on which there is little collected research. The discussion focuses on the development of Subotnick\u27s designs and techniques that he applied to the construction of the ghost works. Through an exploration of earlier background details, it is shown that tape recording, voltage-controlled technologies, and the analog sequencer provided Subotnick with the means to follow his vision and begin creating music as studio art. An examination of these technologies and the creative manner in which he applied them reveal how Subotnick established a vehicle for his life\u27s work in the early sixties, from which he created notable electronic works. An assessment of Subotnick\u27s work from the early seventies shows that the composer\u27s methods progressed using a variety of compositional elements, including electronics and traditional acoustic orchestral instruments, the culmination of which resulted in the creation of the ghost compositions in the mid-seventies. The evaluation of these works reveals Subotnick\u27s aptitude with real-time analog signal processing and his standing as a significant American composer

A performer\u27s guide to multimedia compositions for clarinet and visuals: a tutorial focusing on works by Joel Chabade, Merrill Ellis, William O. Smith, and Reynold Weidenaar.

The clarinetist of today is challenged by advancements in contemporary music and technology. In addition to the difficulties with contemporary clarinet techniques and with the onset of electronic music, multimedia compositions from the last forty years have presented an additional obstacle: the visual element. This written document provides a concise historical perspective of multimedia compositions utilizing clarinet and a tutorial focusing on the preparation of four multimedia works. A catalog of multimedia compositions for clarinet with visuals is included to provide information about literature and availability. This document contains an historical essay, summarizing developments in technology and changes in music composition from the late 1950s to the present, focusing on multimedia clarinet music. It also chronicles the development of multimedia music for the clarinet as both a solo and a chamber instrument. Four multimedia works are presented for study in this document. The pieces were selected according to several criteria such as date of composition, composer\u27s influence, availability, type of visual used, and success in performance or competition. Each piece is representative of one decade: 1960s, 1970s, 1980s, and 1990s. These include Joel Chadabe\u27s Street Scene (1967), Merrill Ellis\u27s A Dream Fantasy (1974), William O. Smith\u27s Slow Motion (1987), and Reynold Weidenaar\u27s Swing Bridge (1997), respectively. A chapter is provided for each of the composers represented by compositions in the recital to provide a biography of the composer, and a description of the piece used for performance in the lecture recital. A tutorial section for each piece offers a preparation and rehearsal guide as well as suggestions for set-up and performance. Clarinetists may be unaware of multimedia literature due to the absence of a catalog. This document includes a catalog of multimedia compositions to aid clarinetists in their search for performance literature. The goal of this recital and written document is to create an awareness and interest in this art form as well as to provide useful strategies for its preparation and performance

Graphical Temporal Structured Programming for Interactive Music

International audienceThe development and authoring of interactive music or applications , such as user interfaces for arts & exhibitions has traditionally been done with tools that pertain to two broad metaphors. Cue-based environments work by making groups of parameters and sending them to remote devices , while more interactive applications are generally written in generic art-oriented programming environments, such as Max/MSP, Processing or openFrameworks. In this paper, we present the current version of the i-score se-quencer. It is an extensive graphical software that bridges the gap between time-based, logic-based and flow-based interactive application authoring tools. Built upon a few simple and novel primitives that give to the composer the expressive power of structured programming, i-score provides a time line adapted to the notation of parameter-oriented interactive music, and allows temporal scripting using JavaScript. We present the usage of these primitives, as well as an i-score example of work inspired from music based on polyvalent structure

Glosario para Partituras Digitales Dinámicas

In this text we present the need of developing a starting point that allows the appropriation of new forms of musical writing in computers by contemporary music composers. For this purpose we created a glossary, theoretically framed in western music tradition, and concluded with a suggested bibliography –in case that there is the need for a wider framework.En este trabajo se plantea la necesidad de desarrollar un punto de partida que permita a compositores musicales actuales apropiarse de nuevas formas de escritura musical por computadora. Para esto se creó un glosario, enmarcado en la tradición musical occidental y que concluye con una bibliografía sugerida, en el caso de necesitar un marco teórico más amplio

Ritualistic approach to sonic interaction design: A poetic framework for participatory sonification

Presented at the 27th International Conference on Auditory Display (ICAD 2022) 24-27 June 2022, Virtual conference.While sonification is often adopted as an analytical tool to understand data, it can also be an efficient basis for the construction of an interaction model for an aesthetic sound piece. Mirroring the performative arts, a ritualistic approach in participatory sonification can take place whenever a work relies more on the outer form of the piece, than on the meaning attributed to the information communicated, to connect with an audience, losing some degrees of readability and intelligibility in the process while maintaining a reliable data-to-sound relationship. We will present a few examples that anticipate or expand the use of sonification as analytical tool to propose aesthetic approaches, accessing more complex layers of meaning in interactive design. By proposing topological, semantic, and technical perspectives, we demonstrate the functional aspects of the multimedia artwork “The Only Object They Could Retrieve From Earth’s Lost Civilisation” (“The Only Object” from now on). Outcomes will be considered under the multidisciplinary framework here proposed, to conclude with possibilities and implications of a ritualistic approach to interaction design

Never Odd Or Even: Using Temporal Structures In Composing Music For Dance

This study engages the collaboration of dance and music, focusing primarily on experiences in the production of a large scale collaborative concert entitled Never Odd or Even. Famous historical collaborations offer archetypal collaborative models, the more unconventional of which are applied to the pieces of the concert. Issues and observations regarding cross-influence, project evolution, and application of the collaborative models are engaged to determine effective means of collaboration given different circumstances. The key focus of the study, the temporal relationship between music and dance, is explored in great detail to determine three models for relating time between music and dance. These temporal relationship models are applied to the pieces and evaluated on effectiveness and potential strengths when applied to dance

Skyler and Bliss

Hong Kong remains the backdrop to the science fiction movies of my youth. The city reminds me of my former training in the financial sector. It is a city in which I could have succeeded in finance, but as far as art goes it is a young city, and I am a young artist. A frustration emerges; much like the mould, the artist also had to develop new skills by killing off his former desires and manipulating technology. My new series entitled HONG KONG surface project shows a new direction in my artistic research in which my technique becomes ever simpler, reducing the traces of pixelation until objects appear almost as they were found and photographed. Skyler and Bliss presents tectonic plates based on satellite images of the Arctic. Working in a hot and humid Hong Kong where mushrooms grow ferociously, a city artificially refrigerated by climate control, this series provides a conceptual image of a imaginary typographic map for survival. (Laurent Segretier

The Visualization and Representation of Electroacoustic Music

In Chapters 1 and 2 there are definitions and a review of electroacoustic music, and then visualization generally and as applied to music. Chapter 3 is a review of specific and relevant literature as regards to the visualization of electroacoustic music. Chapter 4 introduces the concepts of imagining as opposed to discovering new sound, and what is important to this research about these terms; in addition what is meant and indicated by them. Chapter 5 deals with the responses that composers currently working have made to the enquiry concerning visualization. In this chapter these responses are dealt with as case studies. In a similar way, Chapter 6 looks at some examples of historical work in electroacoustic music, again as case studies. In Chapter 7 a taxonomical structure for the use of visualization in electroacoustic composition is established and derived from the case study results. Chapter 8 looks at relevant examples of software and how they offer visualization case studies. Chapter 9 looks at the place of the archive in various stages of the compositional process. Chapter 10 investigates the problems of visualizing musical timbre as possible evidence for future strategies. Chapter 11 offers some conclusions and implications as to the main research questions, as well as more specific outlines of potential strategies for the visualization of electroacoustic music

FACING EXPERIENCE: A PAINTER’S CANVAS IN VIRTUAL REALITY

Full version unavailable due to 3rd party copyright restrictions.This research investigates how shifts in perception might be brought about through the development of visual imagery created by the use of virtual environment technology. Through a discussion of historical uses of immersion in art, this thesis will explore how immersion functions and why immersion has been a goal for artists throughout history. It begins with a discussion of ancient cave drawings and the relevance of Plato’s Allegory of the Cave. Next it examines the biological origins of “making special.” The research will discuss how this concept, combined with the ideas of “action” and “reaction,” has reinforced the view that art is fundamentally experiential rather than static. The research emphasizes how present-day virtual environment art, in providing a space that engages visitors in computer graphics, expands on previous immersive artistic practices. The thesis examines the technical context in which the research occurs by briefly describing the use of computer science technologies, the fundamentals of visual arts practices, and the importance of aesthetics in new media and provides a description of my artistic practice. The aim is to investigate how combining these approaches can enhance virtual environments as artworks. The computer science of virtual environments includes both hardware and software programming. The resultant virtual environment experiences are technologically dependent on the types of visual displays being used, including screens and monitors, and their subsequent viewing affordances. Virtual environments fill the field of view and can be experienced with a head mounted display (HMD) or a large screen display. The sense of immersion gained through the experience depends on how tracking devices and related peripheral devices are used to facilitate interaction. The thesis discusses visual arts practices with a focus on how illusions shift our cognition and perception in the visual modalities. This discussion includes how perceptual thinking is the foundation of art experiences, how analogies are the foundation of cognitive experiences and how the two intertwine in art experiences for virtual environments. An examination of the aesthetic strategies used by artists and new media critics are presented to discuss new media art. This thesis investigates the visual elements used in virtual environments and prescribes strategies for creating art for virtual environments. Methods constituting a unique virtual environment practice that focuses on visual analogies are discussed. The artistic practice that is discussed as the basis for this research also concentrates on experiential moments and shifts in perception and cognition and references Douglas Hofstadter, Rudolf Arnheim and John Dewey. iv Virtual environments provide for experiences in which the imagery generated updates in real time. Following an analysis of existing artwork and critical writing relative to the field, the process of inquiry has required the creation of artworks that involve tracking systems, projection displays, sound work, and an understanding of the importance of the visitor. In practice, the research has shown that the visitor should be seen as an interlocutor, interacting from a first-person perspective with virtual environment events, where avatars or other instrumental intermediaries, such as guns, vehicles, or menu systems, do not to occlude the view. The aesthetic outcomes of this research are the result of combining visual analogies, real time interactive animation, and operatic performance in immersive space. The environments designed in this research were informed initially by paintings created with imagery generated in a hypnopompic state or during the moments of transitioning from sleeping to waking. The drawings often emphasize emotional moments as caricatures and/or elements of the face as seen from a number of perspectives simultaneously, in the way of some cartoons, primitive artwork or Cubist imagery. In the imagery, the faces indicate situations, emotions and confrontations which can offer moments of humour and reflective exploration. At times, the faces usurp the space and stand in representation as both face and figure. The power of the placement of the caricatures in the paintings become apparent as the imagery stages the expressive moment. The placement of faces sets the scene, establishes relationships and promotes the honesty and emotions that develop over time as the paintings are scrutinized. The development process of creating virtual environment imagery starts with hand drawn sketches of characters, develops further as paintings on “digital canvas”, are built as animated, three-dimensional models and finally incorporated into a virtual environment. The imagery is generated while drawing, typically with paper and pencil, in a stream of consciousness during the hypnopompic state. This method became an aesthetic strategy for producing a snappy straightforward sketch. The sketches are explored further as they are worked up as paintings. During the painting process, the figures become fleshed out and their placement on the page, in essence brings them to life. These characters inhabit a world that I explore even further by building them into three dimensional models and placing them in computer generated virtual environments. The methodology of developing and placing the faces/figures became an operational strategy for building virtual environments. In order to open up the range of art virtual environments, and develop operational strategies for visitors’ experience, the characters and their facial features are used as navigational strategies, signposts and methods of wayfinding in order to sustain a stream of consciousness type of navigation. Faces and characters were designed to represent those intimate moments of self-reflection and confrontation that occur daily within ourselves and with others. They sought to reflect moments of wonderment, hurt, curiosity and humour that could subsequently be relinquished for more practical or purposeful endeavours. They were intended to create conditions in which visitors might reflect upon their emotional state, v enabling their understanding and trust of their personal space, in which decisions are made and the nature of world is determined. In order to extend the split-second, frozen moment of recognition that a painting affords, the caricatures and their scenes are given new dimensions as they become characters in a performative virtual reality. Emotables, distinct from avatars, are characters confronting visitors in the virtual environment to engage them in an interactive, stream of consciousness, non-linear dialogue. Visitors are also situated with a role in a virtual world, where they were required to adapt to the language of the environment in order to progress through the dynamics of a drama. The research showed that imagery created in a context of whimsy and fantasy could bring ontological meaning and aesthetic experience into the interactive environment, such that emotables or facially expressive computer graphic characters could be seen as another brushstroke in painting a world of virtual reality