Hostname: page-component-78c5997874-lj6df Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-06T02:38:16.407Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false

Experiencing Responsive Technology in a Mixed Work: Interactive music as embodied and situated activity

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  24 November 2017

Anna Einarsson*
Affiliation:
Royal College of Music, Box 277 11, 11591 Stockholm, Sweden

Abstract

How is performing with responsive technology in a mixed work experienced by performers, and how may the notion of embodied cognition further our understanding of this interaction? These questions are addressed here analysing accounts from singers performing the author’s mixed work Metamorphoses (2015). Combining semi-structured interviews and inspiration from Interpretative Phenomenological Analysis, questions concerning the ‘self’ when listening, singing, moving and relating to fellow musicians, as well as the relationship towards the computer, are explored. The results include a notion of the computer as neither separated nor detached but both, and highlight the importance of the situation, including not only the here and now but also social and cultural dimensions. The discussion emphasises the role of sensorimotor interaction and bodily experience in human meaning-making.

Type
Articles
Copyright
© Cambridge University Press 2017 

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

REFERENCES

Andean, J. 2011. Ecological Psychology and the Electroacoustic Concert Context. Organised Sound 16(2): 125133.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Antle, A. N., Corness, G. and Droumeva, M. 2009. What the Body Knows: Exploring the Benefits of Embodied Metaphors in Hybrid Physical Digital Environments. Interacting with Computers 21(1): 6675.Google Scholar
Broadhurst, S. 2006. Digital Practices: An Aesthetic and Neuroesthetic Approach to Virtuality and Embodiment. Performance Research 11(4): 137147.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Chemero, A. 2009. Radical Embodied Cognitive Science. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Clarke, E. F. 2005. Ways of Listening: An Ecological Approach to the Perception of Musical Meaning. Oxford: Oxford University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Damasio, A. R. 2003. Looking for Spinoza: Joy, Sorrow and the Feeling Brain. London: Heinemann.Google Scholar
Drummond, J. 2009. Understanding Interactive Systems. Organised Sound 14(2): 124133.Google Scholar
Eigenfeldt, A. 2011. Real-time Composition as Performance Ecosystem. Organised Sound 16(2): 145153.Google Scholar
Einarsson, A. 2015. We Can Work It Out – Calibration as Artistic Method. Ruukku, 4. www.researchcatalogue.net/view/142373/142374 (accessed 14 September 2017).Google Scholar
Einarsson, A. and Friberg, A. 2015. Using Singing Voice Vibrato as a Control Parameter in a Chamber Opera. Proceedings of ICMC 2015. Texas, 25 September–1 October.Google Scholar
Emmerson, S. 2009. Combining the Acoustic and the Digital: Music for Instruments and Computers or Prerecorded Sound. In R. T. Dean (ed.) The Oxford Handbook of Computer Music. Oxford: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Essl, G. and O’Modhrain, S. 2006. An Enactive Approach to the Design of New Tangible Musical Instruments. Organised Sound 11(3): 285296.Google Scholar
Friberg, A., Schoonderwaldt, E. and Juslin, P. N. 2007. CUEX: An Algorithm for Automatic Extraction of Expressive Tone Parameters in Music Performance from Acoustic Signals. Acta Acustica United with Acustica 93(3): 411420.Google Scholar
Frisk, H. 2008. Improvisation, Computers, and Interaction: Rethinking Human-Computer Interaction Through Music. Doctoral dissertation, Lund University.Google Scholar
Gaver, W. 1991. Technology Affordances. CHI ’91: Proceedings of the SIGCHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems: Reaching Through Technology. New Orleans, LA, 28 April–2 May.Google Scholar
Holmes, P. and Holmes, C. 2013. The Performer’s Experience: A Case for Using Qualitative (Phenomenological) Methodologies in music Performance Research. Musicae Scientiae 17(1): 7285.Google Scholar
Hunt, A., Wanderley, M. M. and Paradis, M. 2003. The Importance of Parameter Mapping in Electronic Instrument Design. Journal of New Music Research 32(4): 429440.Google Scholar
Johnson, M. 2008. The Meaning of the Body: Aesthetics of Human Understanding. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.Google Scholar
Johnston, A., Candy, L. and Edmonds, E. 2008. Designing and Evaluating Virtual Musical Instruments: Facilitating Conversational User Interaction. Design Studies 29(6): 556571.Google Scholar
Käufer, S. and Chemero, A. 2015. Phenomenology: An Introduction. Chichester: John Wiley.Google Scholar
Kozel, S. 2007. Closer: Performance, Technologies, Phenomenology. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.Google Scholar
Lakoff, G. and Johnson, M. 1999. Philosophy in the Flesh: The Embodied Mind and its Challenge to Western Thought. New York: Basic Books.Google Scholar
Leman, M. 2008. Embodied Music Cognition and Mediation Technology. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.Google Scholar
Lindblom, J. 2015. Embodied Social Cognition. Berlin: Springer.Google Scholar
Luciani, A., Florens, J. L., Couroussé, D. and Castet, J. 2009. Ergotic Sounds: A New Way to Improve Playability, Believability and Presence of Virtual Musical Instruments. Journal of New Music Research 38(3): 309323.Google Scholar
McNutt, E. 2003. Performing Electroacoustic Music: A Wider View of Interactivity. Organised Sound 8(3): 297304.Google Scholar
Miller, W. R. and Rollnick, S. 2012. Motivational Interviewing: Helping People Change. New York: Guilford Press.Google Scholar
Morse, M. 2003. The Poetics of Interactivity. In J. Malloy (ed.) Women, Art, and Technology. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.Google Scholar
Mulder, A. 1994, August. Virtual Musical Instruments: Accessing the Sound Synthesis Universe as a Performer. Proceedings of the First Brazilian Symposium on Computer Music. Minas Gerais, Brazil, 2–4 August.Google Scholar
Paine, G. 2002. Interactivity: Where to From Here? Organised Sound 7(3): 295304.Google Scholar
Paine, G. 2009. Towards Unified Design Guidelines for New Interfaces for Musical Expression. Organised Sound 14(2): 142155.Google Scholar
Penny, J. 2011. Flutes, Voices and Maskenfreiheit: Traversing Performative Layers. Organised Sound 16(2): 184191.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Rambusch, J. and Susi, T. 2008. The Challenge of Managing Affordances in Computer Game Play. Human IT 9(3): 83109.Google Scholar
Rogers, C. R. 1975. Empathic: An Unappreciated Way of Being. The Counseling Psychologist 5(2): 210.Google Scholar
Schroeder, F. 2006. The Voice as Transcursive Inscriber: The Relation of Body and Instrument Understood through the Workings of a Machine. Contemporary Music Review 25(1–2): 131138.Google Scholar
Schroeder, F. and Rebelo, P. 2009. The Pontydian Performance: The Performative Layer. Organised Sound 14(2): 134141.Google Scholar
Shapiro, L. 2007. Embodied Cognition. Abingdon: Routledge.Google Scholar
Sharkey, N. E. and Ziemke, T. 2001. Mechanistic Versus Phenomenal Embodiment. Cognitive Systems Research 2(4): 251262.Google Scholar
Smith, J. A., Flowers, P. and Larkin, M. 2009. Interpretative Phenomenological Analysis: Theory, Method and Research. London: Sage.Google Scholar
Susi, T. and Ziemke, T. 2005. On the Subject of Objects: Four Views on Object Perception and Tool Use. Triple C: Cognition, Communication, Co-operation 3(2): 619.Google Scholar
Torenvliet, G. 2003. We Can’t Afford It! The Devaluation of a Usability Term. Interactions X(4, July/August): 12–17.Google Scholar
Windsor, L. 2000. Through and Around the Acousmatic: The Interpretation of Electroacoustic Sounds. In S. Emmerson (ed.) Music, Electronic Media and Culture. London: Ashgate.Google Scholar
Withagen, R., de Poel, H. J., Araújo, D. and Pepping, G. J. 2012. Affordances can Invite Behavior: Reconsidering the Relationship between Affordances and Agency. New Ideas in Psychology 30(2): 250258.Google Scholar