Garth Paine

Interactivity, where to from here?

This article is intended to raise some points of interest and mark out some pointers for alternative approaches to the design and execution of interactive music systems and artworks which pursue interaction that:• does not include any pre-defined pathways,• takes dynamic morphology as its foundation, and• implements dynamic software infrastructures, built on the object-oriented model, providing dynamic instrument instantiation, orchestration and timbral control.It is intended that such design would be a precursor to a new approach to interactivity that responds more directly and uniquely to those who engage in the work, and in so doing rewards them more richly for their time, energy and enthusiasm.

Towards unified design guidelines for new interfaces for musical expression

The use of a laptop computer for musical performance has become widespread in the electronic music community. It brings with it many issues pertaining to the communication of musical intent. Critics argue that performances of this nature fail to engage audiences because many performers use the mouse and/or computer keyboard to control their musical works, leaving no visual cues to guide the audience as to the correlation between performance gestures and musical outcomes. The author will argue that interfaces need to communicate something of their task and that cognitive affordances (Gibson 1979) associated with the performance interface become paramount if the musical outcomes are to be perceived as clearly tied to real-time performance gestures – in other words, that the audience are witnessing the creation of the music in that moment as distinct to the manipulation of pre-recorded or pre-sequenced events. Interfaces of his kind lend themselves particularly to electroacoustic and computer music performance where timbre, texture and morphology may be paramount.

The Thummer Mapping Project (ThuMP)

This paper presents the Thummer Mapping Project (ThuMP), an industry partnership project between ThumMotion P/L and The University of Western Sydney (UWS). ThuMP sought to developing mapping strategies for new interfaces for musical expression (NIME), specifically the Thummer#8482;, which provides thirteen simultaneous degrees of freedom. This research presents a new approach to the mapping problem resulting from a primary design research phase and a prototype testing and evaluation phase. In order to establish an underlying design approach for the Thummer#8482; mapping strategies, a number of interviews were carried out with high-level acoustic instrumental performers, the majority of whom play with the Sydney Symphony Orchestra, Sydney, Australia. Mapping strategies were developed from analysis of these interviews and then evaluated in trial usability testing.

New Musical Instrument Design Considerations

This article discusses the proliferation of new musical instruments and interfaces for computer-based music performance (digital musical instruments). It discusses the notion of a musical instrument schema and how preexisting musical practice can be used to provide design guidelines for this developing field. In so doing, it teases out notions of control and creation and discusses a number of theoretical positions for those notions in musical performance. The author provides a model for musical interface design and discusses it in terms of a large online database of digital musical instruments he has created.

Dynamic Sonification as a Free Music Improvisation Tool for Physically Disabled Adults

This paper reports on the development and initial evaluation of a video-based, dynamic, sonification device used with 5 physically disabled adults, recent clients of Creative Music Therapy (CMT). Of particular interest was the extent to which the dynamic properties of the technology could assist the participants to engage in a dynamic musical interaction at the level of autonomy available to physically able people. Each participant took part in 8, half-hour sessions utilizing free interactive improvisation. During the study, several sonic algorithms were trialed and adjusted according to each participant’s movements and preferences. Informing the sonification design was the concept of dynamic orchestration developed by Paine, and real-time sound synthesis. Results indicated that video-based dynamic sonification systems may be used effectively as free improvisation tools with people who have mild physical disabilities, but that modifications may have to be made for people whose movements are more severely restricted.

Designing the techno-somatic

This paper proposes an alternative approach to the analysis and design of interaction in realtime performance systems. It draws on the idea that the connection between the human engagement with the interface (digital or analog) and the resultant rich media output forms a proposed experiential dimension containing both technical and somatic considerations. The proposed dimension is characterized by its materiality and is referred to by the author as the techno-somatic dimension. The author is proposing that design and analysis efforts for new interactive systems should focus on the techno-somatic dimension. That if this dimension is designed with care to produce a detailed and nuanced experience for the user, then design specifications for the interface will automatically result, and that such an interface will produce the desired materiality and actional intentionality. For the purposes of this discussion, the author will focus principally on musical interfaces.

Interactive Tango Milonga: designing internal experience

The Argentine tango concept of connection refers to the experience of complete synchronicity between self, partner, and music. This paper presents Interactive Tango Milonga, an interactive system giving tango dancers agency over music in order to increase this sense of relation between both partners and music. Like an improvising musician in an ensemble, each dancer receives musical feedback from both her movements and her partners. Thus, each dancer can respond to the music, driving musical feedback, thereby heightening awareness and agency in both the sound and her partners movements. Via presentation of this system, this paper illustrates methods for developing interactive systems engaging with distinct musical, movement, and social traditions as well for composing sound-movement relationships leading to specific internal experiences within these social contexts.

Embodiment: auditory visual enhancement of interactive environments.

This paper reflects upon two experimental projects, implemented as auditory visual (AV) augmentation of the Articulated Head (AH) [9] which is an interactive robotic installation exhibited in the Power House Museum (PHM) [25], Ultimo, Sydney, Australia. Research participant Video Cued Recall (VCR) interviews and subsequent Interpretative Phenomenological Analysis (IPA) [28] indicate that the experimental projects did have some impact upon audience engagement. We discuss mediating considerations and constraints, which explicate confounding and compromising aspects of the experimental designs and their presentation to the interacting audience. Within the context of embodiment, the critical importance that dimensional layout and display have upon the effectiveness of audio visual aids and the strength of spatio-temporal contextualizing cues in relatively unconstrained interactive public exhibition spaces is considered. Conclusions contribute a refined experimental project design, aimed at expediting more encouraging participant reportage of the enhancement of engagement in Human Computer Interaction (HCI) with this, and similar types of interactive installation exhibits.

Reeds : a responsive environmental sound installation

This article discusses the responsive sound installation Reeds. The Reeds project was commissioned by the Melbourne International Festival of the Arts in 2000, and first exhibited in November and December of that year on the Ornamental Lake at the Royal Botanic Gardens, Melbourne. It consists of twenty-one large floating sculptures, modelled to represent clusters of river reeds in immaculate man-made plantings. Each reed pod contains a collection of electronics for either the gathering of weather information or the reception and dispersion of sound. The sound installation gathered data from two real-time weather stations, and produced eight channels of musical output by interpreting the machine unit pulses of the weather data as pulse inputs to Inverse Fast Fourier Transform (IFFT) algorithms. The Reeds project focused on a consideration of multiple streams of chaotic and constantly varying sound. I was interested in exploring whether the sonic environment would remain homogenous even though, unlike a musical ensemble, the control inputs varied randomly and independently of each other. The sound installation was site specific, reflecting directly upon the environment it inhabited, both in terms of its visual quality, and aesthetic of the sound.

Acoustic Ecology 2.0

In this article, I argue for a reassertion of the practice of acoustic ecology. I present an argument for the rejection of the term soundscape in favour of the notion of an acoustic ecology; along the way, I show how the concept of ecology is a powerful tool in re-imaging the role of sound awareness in the society. I argue, however, that acoustic ecology as defined by Luc Ferrari and Murray Schaeffer needs refocusing or revitalizing. I suggest a framework that prioritizes community engagement, exploration, and experience of the sounding world, driven by a desire to build stewardship and agency for change management in the community. The proposed model draws on the sensibilities of acoustic ecology to drive design solutions to anthropocentric sound challenges. This kind of work provides for the development of tools that quantify environmental psychoacoustic metrics and can be used to design and manage acoustic ecologies that contribute to well-being, social cohesion, and quality of life.