New Media RoundTable: Prof. David Wessel - Composing Computer-Based Musical Instruments

Composing Computer-Based Musical Instruments

David Wessel

Center for New Music and Audio Technologies (CNMAT)

Department of Music

U C Berkeley

When asked what instrument I play I have for some years now responded, "I play the computer." For many my answer is perplexing and often provokes something like "I understand you use the computer to make music, but you don't really play it like a real instrument."

In my brief presentation I want to give an overview of the design space for musical instruments that exploit computation. Key interaction design criteria suggest that they should be bodily engaging, musically inspiring, afford exploration, and have a low-entry investment with no limit on virtuosity. A range of gestural interactions with sound and musical material are possible, from high control intimacy and repeatability of response on the one hand to an interactive negotiation model on the other. Along the way I hope to make some general observations about gestural interaction with media.

David Wessel is Professor of Music and co-directs the Center for New Music and Audio Technologies. His research interests include musical applications of computation, music perception and cognition, and performance practice for computer-based instruments. He performs regularly with a variety of improvisors including Roscoe Mitchell, Frank Gratkowski, Nils Bultmann, and Myra Melford among others. His recordings appear on RogueArt , Mutable Music, Wergo, and JVC. The most recent release is Contact on RogueArt, a DVD and CD combination consisting of duo's with Roscoe Mitchell.

Resources:

http://cnmat.berkeley.edu

http://web.roguart.com/shop/album/id/36

Workshop: Tear Down This Wall! - Internet Art Circumventing Censorship and Unveiling Secret Prisons, Mathias Jud and Christoph Wachter

Focusing on walls on a global scale, internet artists Mathias Jud and Christoph Wachter will talk about their various projects such as Picidae, Zone Interdite, and The Great Firewall of China – focusing on sites ranging from "the valley of the clueless" in Dresden/East Germany to Guantanamo and Chinese internet cafés. They will explicate their approach to internet art as a means of demonstrating the many ways in which the world wide web is regulated by institutional barriers and national laws. This filtered perception of the world is exposed in new modes of interactive installation and exhibition. The discussion will focus on questions of participatory spectatorship.

New Media RoundTable: Noah Wardrip-Fruin - Operational Logics

One of our field's persistent questions is how we can think productively about digital media's "inside." Some invoke the binary nature of digital storage, others focus on the discrete nature of digital computation, and many have suggested that (uncompiled source) code should be our focus (either in a model of close reading or in a series of wide-ranging parallels with other forms of "code"). Wardrip-Fruin's approach is, instead, to focus on the "operational logics" at work within digital media. Operational logics are computational processes, used by authors to communicate to audiences, that can be implemented many ways. They range from immediately visual (e.g., collision detection in computer graphics) to long-term and indirectly observed (e.g., AI planning for character behavior). Wardrip-Fruin argues that a focus on logics provides a revealing way of looking at the current state of the field and thinking about its future evolution -- as well as of comparing and interpreting individual works.

Noah Wardrip-Fruin works to connect the arts, humanities, and computer science - with a particular interest in fiction and playability. His digital media projects have been presented by conferences, galleries, research facilities, arts festivals, and museums. He is author of _Expressive Processing: Digital Fictions, Computer Games, and Software Studies_ (MIT Press, 2009) and has edited four books, including _Second Person: Role-Playing and Story in Games and Playable Media_ (MIT Press, 2007), with Pat Harrigan, and _The New Media Reader_ (MIT Press, 2003), with Nick Montfort. He is currently an Assistant Professor with the Expressive Intelligence Studio in the Department of Computer Science at the University of California, Santa Cruz.

Contact: info.bcnm@berkeley.edu

ATC Lecture: Sonic Immersion - An Experiment of Eclectic and Unusual Sounds and Musics, David Harrington

Co-presented with Cal Performances

Contact, info.bcnm@berkeley.edu