Pedro Rebelo

Performing space

This article discusses how the notion of performance provides impetus for the design of interactive digital environments. These environments can ultimately be regarded as user-spaces; a condition which replaces the ‘fixed’ art-object with a configuration of interactions. Our understanding of space, as suggested by Lefevbre (2001), defines the ‘inhabitant’ as a full participant, a user, a performer of space. What is at play when the installation artist designs environments that invite performative exploration? The issue of improvised performance in the inhabiting of installation spaces is exposed. Two interactive installations by the author and works by others in the field provide a context for discussion and analysis.

Haptic sensation and instrumental transgression

Anyone who has ever played a musical instrument will certify the development of a particular type of relationship between the instrument and the performer. This relationship goes beyond a convenient coupling that is optimized for sound production. Every musical instrument defines ways in which to be touched, felt, activated. Music performance is dependent on bodily involvement that goes beyond the auditory and the sense of hearing. This article investigates the role of haptic sensation in the context of the performer–instrument relationship and draws on the writings of Georges Bataille to illuminate a discussion of the erotic in performance.

Dramaturgy in the Network

This article addresses challenges and opportunities posed by the design and production of network performance from the point of view of collaborative creative work. It examines strategies that, while referring to the network as a new medium for performance, make use of concepts from dramaturgy to better understand the relationships between artists, audiences and media. The author characterises three distinct models for dramaturgy, particularly from the point of view of collaboration, authorship, presence and environment.

The pontydian performance: The performative layer

In this paper we reflect on the performer–instrument relationship by turning towards the thinking practices of the French philosopher Maurice Merleau-Ponty (1908–1961). Merleau-Ponty’s phenomenological idea of the body as being at the centre of the world highlights an embodied position in the world and bestows significance onto the body as a whole, onto the body as a lived body. In order to better understand this two-way relationship of instrument and performer, we introduce the notion of the performative layer, which emerges through strategies for dealing with discontinuities, breakdowns and the unexpected in network performance.

Notating the Unpredictable

Notation can be seen to sit conformably between theory and practice as it symbolizes practice, generates and implements theory, and produces practice. Historically, its presence changes in significance across the development of activities such as music or architecture. From design tool to canonic text, notational artefacts both solidify and formalize practice, as will be expanded below. How, then, does the role and function of notation change with specific contemporary practices, which are by definition ill-defined and feed off fluidity and change? What is the nature of notation in distributed and collaborative practices such as improvised music or network music performance?

Wearable music in engaging technologies

We address the relationship between a music performer and her instrument as a possible model for re-thinking wearable technologies. Both musical instruments and textiles invite participation and by engaging with them we intuitively develop a sense of their malleability, resistance and fragility. In the action of touching we not only sense, but more importantly we react. We adjust the nature of our touch according to a particular material’s property. In this paper we draw on musical practice as it suggests attitudes of specificity rather than adaptability. This practice exposes the design of generalised “multi-use” devices, such as the all-in-one electronic organ, as rooted in utilitarian thinking. We argue that this tendency ignores the complexities of musical cultures and thus fails to provide technologies, which provoke creative action rather than aim for the promise of control and efficiency.

Resisting the Seamless Interface

In this paper we examine the quest for seamless computer interaction from the point of view of cultural theory, in so far as this study draws on Freud and his critics. The paper adopts Ricoeurs critical stance, examining the roles of metaphor, repetition, resistance and a time-based perturbation, as means of challenging the imperative towards the seamless interface. We also draw on our experience in teaching and creating interactive digital media works.

Evocative listening: Mediated practices in everyday life1

The history of sonic arts is charged with transgressive practices that seek to expose the social, aural and cultural thresholds across various listening experiences, posing new questions in terms of the dialogue between listener and place. Recent work in sonic art exposes the need for an experiential understanding of listening that foregrounds the use of new personal technologies, environmental philosophy and the subject-object relationship. This paper aims to create a vocabulary that better contextualises recent installations and performances produced within the context of everyday life, by researchers and artists at the Sonic Arts Research Centre at Queens University Belfast.

Environments for Sonic Ecologies

This paper outlines a current lack of consideration for the environmental context of Evolutionary Algorithms used for the generation of music. We attempt to readdress this balance by outlining the benefits of developing strong coupling strategies between agent and environment. It goes on to discuss the relationship between artistic process and the viewer and suggests a placement of the viewer and agent in a shared environmental context to facilitate understanding of the artistic process and a feeling of participation in the work. The paper then goes on to outline the installation `Excuse MeO and how it attempts to achieve a level of Sonic Ecology through the use of a shared environmental context.

DAMPER: a platform for effortful interface development

This paper proposes that the physicality of an instrument be considered an important aspect in the design of new interfaces for musical expression. The use of Labans theory of effort in the design of new effortful interfaces, in particular looking at effort-space modulation, is investigated, and a platform for effortful interface development (named the DAMPER) is described. Finally, future work is described and further areas of research are highlighted.