Francisco Zamorano

SOCIAL ACTIVITIES
A great place where I can explore the social dynamics involved in these experiences are the leisure activities we perform in our regular life, particularly the ones performed in collaboration, like dancing, practicing collective sports or playing board games. All of them have common dynamics that can be applied to my own project. These activities and their dynamics will be further investigated throughout my research process.

IN THE ART REALM
I find the work of David Rokeby very interesting and I feel it is relevant for my research. Rokeby is an artist that has explored the relationships between body, sound and physical space. Since the eighties he has developed a series of installations that make use of technology to convey these ideas. One of his most interesting pieces is Very Nervous System [1], an installation that uses computer vision to interpret body movements into sound, creating very complex and expressive compositions. My interest in his work relies on how he uses the body as an expressive controller. Additionally, the technical aspects of this project are relevant too. Using camera vision techniques is something I feel valuable to explore.
In contrast to my own exploration, Very Nervous System is meant only for one participant, and mainly for experts–although experts in this case would be dancers and not necessarily musicians, which is interesting too–. I also would like to differ from the experience mood he presents, I’m not interested in introspective interactions, because I feel that is not the most adequate mood that best suits a collaborative experience.

SIMILAR PROJECTS
An inspiration from the realm of collaborative musical instruments is The Reactable [2], a tabletop synthesizer using physical objects as controllers. Although I’m sure is one of the most cited examples in these kind of research, a lot of that research con be incorporated to my own. In the Reactable project, the collaborative aspects are really well executed. The idea of a round table for instance, implies the idea of democracy, where all the participants have the same hierarchy.
Although the Reactable is pitched both as an instrument for novices and expert performers [3], it seemed to me–I had the chance to play it–that is more an instrument leaning towards expert performance. In the practice, the Reactable is not that easy to play o understand, and as any other traditional instrument, it requires considerable practice to be mastered. Also, the visual feedback is very seductive, making the participants be completely absorbed by the visual, not worrying too much about the human-to-human interaction.

THEO WATSON

I find the work of Theo Watson very inspiring. In particular the Vinyl Workout [4] and Audio Space[5] installations. Both make a use of space and sound in interesting ways. What I find remarkable about Vinyl Workout is its simplicity. It consists on a vinyl record image projected on the floor. Users walk inside the projection in circles, making the vinyl spin and play songs in different speeds depending on how fast or slow participants walk. The beauty of the system is that although it requires a very simple gesture, it generates interesting and expressive interactions. Unlike Rokeby’s Very Nervous System, Audiospace uses the three dimensions of space, where sounds are mapped to specific locations in a room. As users walk around the room with a pair of headphones, they can hear the different sounds and perceive their virtual position, as if they were floating in space. Again, the mood of the experience is introspective and very personal (users wear headphones), which is not exactly what I’m looking for.

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[1] “Very Nervous System,” David Rokeby, accessed September 20, 2011, http://homepage.mac.com/davidrokeby/vns.html
[2] “The Reactable”, Reactable Systems, accessed September 21, 2011, http://www.reactable.com
[3] Kaltenbrunner, M., Jordà, S., Geiger, G., and Alonso, M.  The reacTable*: A Collaborative Musical Instrument.  In Proceedings of WETICE.       2006, 406-411.
[4] “Vinyl Workout,” Theo Watson, accessed September 22, 2011, http://www.theowatson.com/site_docs/work.php?id=39
[5] “Audio Space,” Theo Watson, accessed September 22, 2011, http://www.theowatson.com/site_docs/work.php?id=15

In this phase of the thesis, I decided to start with the main questions and goals. Questions as: Why? What is the problem? Who cares? Are the leading concerns at this stage. Taking the previous experience of Trinidad as a starting point, and revising the outcomes, in this section I try to define what are the main frameworks where my thesis and project will reside, with the aim to visualize a blueprint of the different areas I will be researching during the thesis year.

Daniel J. Levitin in his enlightening book This is Your Brain on Music [1] exposes the fact that in our times–specially in Western societies–music expression is most of the times exclusively reserved for experts:

“Only relatively recently in our own culture, five hundred or so ago, did a distinction arise that cut society in two, forming separate classes of music performers and music listeners. Throughout most of the world and for most of human history, music making was as natural an activity as breathing and walking, and everyone participated. Concert halls, dedicated to the performance of music, arose only in the last several centuries.” (p.6)

I don’t consider myself a virtuoso instrumentalist, or even a musician. Musical notation is as foreign as Russian language is to me, and I don’t really understand musical scales. Yet, I’ve been making music for more than fifteen years, and I’ve managed to play in some bands. My sense is that most of musicians don’t really care about the technical aspects of music, they make music because they like it, because it is a rewarding and pleasurable activity and playing with someone else just amplifies those feelings. So I wonder: why the distinction between performers and listeners is so prevalent, when making music is one of the things that fundamentally defines us as humans?

Although people without musical training experience flow in several other contexts, they usually don’t experience it around music creation. One of the main reasons for this is that the learning process of mastering an instrument requires practice, dedication, patience and time. A violin for instance, can take several years to be played with mastery. “I don’t know how to play an instrument, therefore, I can’t participate in music exploration” is the thought sequence that most people follow.
Around this idea, is where my thesis resides and builds the main concerns: How can novices get involved in collaborative musical expression? How can participants experience the state of flow around music creation? What role can play a Design and Technology thesis to address this issue? How can technology facilitate these experiences?

My thesis then will investigate the social interactions in collaborative sound environments, having as the main design question: How can technology facilitate collaborative sound experiences? The aim of the project that illustrates this thesis is to provide a structure where participants are encouraged to achieve a loose state of mind and openness towards sound exploration. This state of mind sets the basis for the development of collaborative behaviors, enhancing the social cohesion between participants that ultimately leading to experience group flow. Setting up small sets of rules for the interaction, the structure should allow emergent play and musical expression, but these should be considered only as means to achieve the desired social experience.

Consequently, the main conceptual framework will then be around these ideas. In the core of said framework is collaboration, where all the components such as the system that supports the experience will aim. Sound, in a second level, acts as one of the means to achieve the social experience. Play, on the other side, acts as a catalyst, and technology, acts as a facilitator for the interaction between people and the whole system.

Finally I outline here some of the key-points or goals for my project:

• Facilitate playful interactions
• Provide a platform for exploration
• Provide a small set of rules
• Allow low level-entry to the sound experience
• Create a fertile ground for the sequence of exploration-discovery-learning-collaboration

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[1] Levitin, Daniel. This is your brain on music : the science of human obsession. New York  N.Y.: Dutton, 2006