Nicholas Ward

Tightly Coupled Agents in Live Performance Metacreations

We consider how the application of AI in digital musical instruments might maximally support exploration of sound in performance. Live performance applications of AI and machine learning have tended to focus on score following and the development of machine collaborators. In our work we are interested in exploring the development of systems whereby the human performer interacts with a reactive and creative agent in the creation of a single sonic output. The intention is to design systems that foster exploration and allow for greater (than with acoustic instruments) opportunities for serendipitous musical encounters. An initial approach to the integration of autonomous agency, based on gesture reshaping schemes within the Reactable performance system, is first outlined. We then describe a simple platform based on the non-player characters within Pacman, which serves as a test bed for guiding further discussion on what musical machine collaboration at this level may entail. Pilot studies for both systems are outlined.

The use of physical theatre improvisation in game design

This paper describes the development and use of a design method based in physical theatre practice in the creation of Charge, a multiplayer physical game that relies on digital technology. Methods from Physical Theatre improvisation were explored in a series of workshops as the basis for developing an understanding of how to design technology supported games that encourage physical and social engagement through body movement. A central concern here is the use of technology to support positive user experience and the sense of fun that are connected with body movement and physicality within game play. The initial results suggest that physical theatre practice may usefully contribute to our design understanding of human movement and support novel methods for exploring new interaction styles.

Learning from the Crackle Exhibition

This paper describes the Crackle exhibition, an interactive exhibition presented at the Stedelijk Museum in Amsterdam in 1975. We propose that it can be seen as a foreshadowing of aspects of the current state of the art of TEI avant la lettre; and that there might not only be value in examining historical work to construct a longer historical framework for TEI, but that the methods used in the construction of this exhibition might be useful in constructing new visions that foreshadow into the future from our current technological position. We present a detailed description of the exhibition based on documentation and interviews with the people who built it, and suggest that the current state of disappearing computers and embedded computational ability in everyday devices form an opportunity to imagine novel interaction paradigms that may transcend the digital in a similar way as the Crackle exhibition in 1975 transcended the electrical.