Based on the methodology described in the previous section, I’m currently focused on defining the characteristics of the experience. Putting it in simple words: What do I want people to experience with my project? What kind of interactions will the system require? How can interactional requirements shape the social experience?
Doing research on the HCI aspects of these experiences, will allow me to better understand in what ways the interaction between participants and the system can influence on the overall experience, setting different moods. Understanding this better will help me to later take decisions about the target users, interface characteristics and context requirements. By doing research on different projects that relate–directly or indirectly–to my own, I can get a better idea of all the variables that need attention, what are the common points, and goals. In short, is evaluating others’ projects so I can see the strengths and pitfalls that are common in this field and apply those findings into my own project.
Since the 1950‘s there has been an increasing interest on exploring collaborative sound experiences using non-traditional instruments, examples as John Cage’s Symphony of 12 radios [1] were trying to push the traditional boundaries of what was known as collective performances. Since the 70’s, when computational systems became more accessible, artists and scientists have been able to let go their imagination seeking for new ways of interacting with new musical devices and systems. In the last ten years, there has been strong interest among the academic and design communities on this subject. The existence of NIME, the annual conference on New Interfaces for Musical Expression is a proof of that.
Today, the current state of technology and the influence of DIY culture, are allowing more people to explore new approaches to collaborative musical expression, and new projects emerge every time more rapidly. So, my path is not unique, I’m obviously not the first one to investigate this issues nor the only one with the same objectives and passion about this. The good thing is that there’s a community and I’m not alone. I here quote Scott Pobiner, my thesis Professor: “stand in the shoulder of giants”–he said. The challenge is then to find how this thesis contributes to the field. How will it be different from other projects? How will it be better? These are some of the questions that I need to address in order to make this thesis unique.
A study presented for NIME 20102 outlines a broad classification of experiences of ISM (Interactional Sound and Music) by breaking them out into three dimensions: By situation: co-located or remote collaboration, by focus: task-oriented or creative engagement (improvisation), and by immediacy: real-time sound generation or sound-editing. Although the categorization presented here is very useful, I see it with critical eyes because it posits the focus as a binary framework. I believe that having an experience that demands the completion of tasks does not exclude creative engagement, and should be space for both approaches to coexist. However, this statement requires further investigation, developing prototypes will be a way of submitting this classification to test, to see how this relation works. I’m really interested in the following question: can a task-oriented interface allow space for improvisation? My gut feeling says it should, but I won’t be sure until I research more on this point.
Based on my research on different projects, I think that the role that the interface assumes can be classified in three categories: intercommunication, mediation and facilitation. The role of intercommunication implies that most of the communication between participants is done through the interface. For example, in the case of console games such as the Microsoft’s Dance Central designed for the Kinect, the interaction encourages participants to focus their attention to the screen, and all the messages sent between each other are mediated by a digital representation the players. Participants and their interactions become part of the avatar world, making the physical world less important than the virtual.
The second type of role is mediation, where the interface influences and shapes–up to a certain extent– the communication between participants. An example for this would be the Jam-O-Drum [3], where the interface sets the rules for communication but participants can still generate direct interactions between each other. The third type is facilitation, where the interface is in the periphery of attention, and plays the role of enhancing or catalyzing direct communication. An example for this case could be Lucas Werthein’s installation Samba Surdo [4], where sound is the only feedback and the internal mechanics of the interface are hidden from the participants’ attention.
To conclude, some of the main questions that arise from this section are: Can the experience be rich in communicational terms when the interface is mediating the interaction? Can improvisation (creative engagement) be fostered with a task-oriented experience? How can participants’ behaviors can be influenced or modified by the interface?
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[1] http://www.guardian.co.uk/music/2009/aug/06/john-cage-symphony-for-radios
[2] Bryan-Kinns, N., Fencott, R., Metatla, O., Nabavian, S., & Sheridan, J. (2010). Interactional Sound and Music: Listening to CSCW, Sonification, and Sound Art (Demo/Poster). In Proceedings of NIME 2010, Sydney, Australia.
[3] Blaine, Tina, and Tim Perkis. 2000. The Jam-O-Drum interactive music system: a study in interaction design. In Proceedings of the 3rd conference on Designing interactive systems: processes, practices, methods, and techniques, 165–173. DIS ’00. New York, NY, USA: ACM.
[4] http://www.lucaswerthein.com/?p=227