Digital Musical Interactions: Performer-System Relationships and their Perception by Spectators

This article adopts an ecological view of digital musical interactions, first considering the relationship between performers and digital systems, and then spectators’ perception of these interactions. We provide evidence that the relationships between performers and digital music systems are not necessarily instrumental in the same was as they are with acoustic systems, and nor should they always strive to be. Furthermore, we report results of a study suggesting that spectators may not perceive such interactions in the same way as performances with musical instruments. We present implications for the design of digital musical interactions, suggesting that designers should embrace the reality that digital systems are malleable and dynamic, and may engage performers and spectators in different modalities, sometimes simultaneously.

Interview with Paul DeMarinis

Since the early 1970s, the American electronic media artist Paul DeMarinis (b. 1948, Cleveland, Ohio, USA) has created works that re-imagine modes of communication and reinvent the technologies that enable communication. His works (see Table 1) have taken shape as recordings, performances, electronic inventions, and site-specific and interactive installations; many are considered landmarks in the histories of electronic music and media art. Paul DeMarinis pioneered live performance with computers, collaborated on landmark works with artists like David Tudor and Robert Ashley, undertook several tours with the Merce Cunningham Dance Company, and brought to life obscure technologies such as the flame loudspeaker (featured in his 2004 sculpture Firebirds). His interactive installation The Music Room (1982), commissioned by Frank Oppenheimer for the Exploratorium in San Francisco, was the first automatic music work to reach a significant audience. His album Music As A Second Language (1991) marks one of the most extensive explorations of the synthesized voice and speech melodies to date. Installations like The Edison Effect (1989-1993), in which lasers scan ancient recordings to produce music, and The Messenger (1998/2005), in which electronic mail messages are displayed on alphabetic telegraph receivers, illustrate a creative process that Douglas Kahn (1994) has called "reinventing invention." [etc]

A Framework for the Evaluation of Digital Musical Instruments

At the outset of a discussion of evaluating digital musical instruments, that is to say instruments whose sound generators are digital and separable though not necessarily separate from their control interfaces (Malloch, 2006), it is reasonable to ask what the term evaluation in this context really means. After all, there may be many perspectives from which to view the effectiveness or otherwise of the instruments we build. For most performers, performance on an instrument becomes a means of evaluating how well it functions in the context of live music making, and their measure of success is the response of the audience to their performance. Audiences evaluate performances on the basis of how engaged they feel they have been by what they have seen and heard. When questioned, they are likely to describe good performances as “exciting,” “skillful,” “musical.” Bad performances are “boring,” and those which are marred by technical malfunction are often dismissed out of hand. If performance is considered to be a valid means of evaluating a musical instrument, then it follows that, for the field of DMI design, a much broader definition of the term “evaluation” than that typically used in human-computer interaction (HCI) is required to reflect the fact that there are a number of stakeholders involved in the design and evaluation of DMIs. In addition to players and audiences, there are also composers, instrument builders, component manufacturers, and perhaps even customers, each of whom will have a different concept of what is meant by “evaluation.”

From Bogeyman to Bison: a herd-like amnesia of HIV?

Queer theorists from across a broad range of disciplines argue that we are in a ‘normalizing’ or ‘homonormative’ period, in which marginalized subjectivities strive to align themselves with hegemonic norms. In terms of LGBTQ rights and representation, it can be argued that this has resulted in an increased visibility of ‘desirable’ gays (monogamous – ideally civil-partnered, white, financially-independent, able-bodied) and the decreased visibility of ‘undesirable’ gays (the sick, the poor, the non-white, the non gender-conforming). Focusing specifically on the effects of this hierarchy on the contemporary theatrical representation of gay HIV/AIDS subjectivities, this article looks at two performances, Reza Abdoh’s Bogeyman (1991) and Lachlan Philpott’s Bison (2009/10). The essay argues that HIV/AIDS performance is as urgently necessary today as in the early 1990s, and that a queer dramaturgy, unafraid to resist the lure of normativity or the ‘gaystreaming’ of LGBT representation, is a vital intervention strategy in contemporary (LGBT) theatre.

Approaching near-capacity on a multi-antenna channel using successive decoding and interference cancellation receivers

In this paper, we address the problem of designing multirate codes for a multiple-input and multiple-output (MIMO) system by restricting the receiver to be a successive decoding and interference cancellation type, when each of the antennas is encoded independently. Furthermore, it is assumed that the receiver knows the instantaneous fading channel states but the transmitter does not have access to them. It is well known that, in theory, minimum-mean-square error (MMSE) based successive decoding of multiple access (in multi-user communications) and MIMO channels achieves the total channel capacity. However, for this scheme to perform optimally, the optimal rates of each antenna (per-antenna rates) must be known at the transmitter. We show that the optimal per-antenna rates at the transmitter can be estimated using only the statistical characteristics of the MIMO channel in time-varying Rayleigh MIMO channel environments. Based on the results, multirate codes are designed using punctured turbo codes for a horizontal coded MIMO system. Simulation results show performances within about one to two dBs of MIMO channel capacity.

Evocative Listening : Mediated Practices in Everyday Life

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 Queen's University Belfast.

The Costs of Taking It Slowly Fast and Slow Movement Timing in Older Age

We investigated adult age differences in timing control of fast vs slow repetitive movements using a dual task approach Twenty two young (M = 24 23 yr) and 22 older adults (M = 66 64 yr) performed three cognitive tasks differing in working memory load and response production demands and they tapped series of 550 ms or 2100 ms target Intervals Single task timing was comparable in both groups Dual task timing was characterized by shortening of produced intervals and increases in drift and variability Dual task costs for both cognitive and timing performances were pronounced at slower tapping tempos an effect exacerbated in older adults Our findings implicate attention and working memory processes as critical components of slow movement timing and sources of specific challenges thereof for older adults

Expertise is perceived from both sound and body movement in musical performance

Music is a rich form of nonverbal communication, in which the movements that expert musicians make during performance can influence the perception of expressive and structural features of the music. Whether the actual skill of a musician is perceivable from vision of movement was examined. In Experiment 1, musicians and non-musicians rated performances by novice, intermediate and expert clarinettists from point-light animations of their movements, sound recordings, or both. Performances by clarinettists of more advanced skill level were rated significantly higher from vision of movements, although this effect was stronger when sound was also presented. In Experiment 2, movements and sound from the novice and expert clarinettists' performances were switched for half the presentations, and were matched for the rest. Ratings of novice music were significantly higher when presented with expert movements, although the opposite was not found for expert sound presented with novice movements. No perceptual effect of raters' own level of musicianship was found in either experiment. These results suggest that expertise is perceivable from vision of musicians' body movements, although perception of skill from sound is dominant. The results from Experiment 2 further indicate a cross-modal effect of vision and audition on the perception of musical expertise. © 2012 Elsevier B.V.

An in vitro Study to Assess the Potential of a Unique Micro porous Algal Derived Cap Bone Void Filler in Comparison with Clinically-Used Bone Void Fillers

Macroporosity(>100µm) in bone void fillers is a known prerequisite for tissue regeneration, but recent literature has highlighted the added benefit of microporosity(0.5 - 10µm). The aim of this study was to compare the in vitro performances of a novel interconnective microporous hydroxyapatite (HA) derived from red algae to four clinically available macroporous calcium phosphate (CaP) bone void fillers. The use of algae as a starting material for this novel void filler overcomes the issue of sustainability, which overshadows continued use of scleractinian coral in the production of some commercially available materials, namely Pro-OsteonTM and Bio-Coral®. This study investigated the physicochemical properties of each bone voidfiller material using x-ray diffraction, fourier transform infrared spectroscopy, inductive coupled plasma, and nitrogen gas absorption and mercury porosimetry. Biochemical analysis, XTT, picogreen and alkaline phosphatase assays were used to evaluate the biological performances of the five materials. Results showed that algal HA is non-toxic to human foetal osteoblast (hFOB) cells and supports cell proliferation and differentiation. The preliminary in vitro testing of microporous algal-HA suggests that it is comparable to the four clinically approved macroporous bone void fillers tested. The results demonstrate that microporous algal HA has good potential for use in vivo and in new tissue engineered strategies for hard tissue repair.

Analyzing laser plasma interferograms with a continuous wavelet transform ridge extraction technique: the method

Laser plasma interferograms are currently analyzed by extraction of the phase-shift map with fast Fourier transform (FFT) techniques [Appl. Opt. 18, 3101 (1985)]. This methodology works well when interferograms are only marginally affected by noise and reduction of fringe visibility, but it can fail to produce accurate phase-shift maps when low-quality images are dealt with. We present a novel procedure for a phase-shift map computation that makes extensive use of the ridge extraction in the continuous wavelet transform (CWT) framework. The CWT tool is flexible because of the wide adaptability of the analyzing basis, and it can be accurate because of the intrinsic noise reduction in the ridge extraction. A comparative analysis of the accuracy performances of them new tool and the FFT-based one shows that the CWT-based tool produces phase maps considerably less noisy and that it can better resolve local inhomogeneties. (C) 2001 Optical Society of America.

EFFECT OF WEAK PREPULSES ON COLLISIONAL X-RAY LASER PLASMAS

Through the use of time-integrated space-resolved keV spectroscopy, we characterize line plasmas showing gain in Ne-like Zn with prepulsed irradiation to explain the enhanced performances of x-ray lasers using the prepulse technique. It is observed that the value of the electron temperature does not vary significantly with prepulse level, nor does its spatially resolved profile along the line. The lateral width and density of the Ne-like region in the plasma are seen to increase with the prepulse level. (C) 1995 Optical Society of America

A framework for designing robust food supply chains

After years of emphasis on leanness and responsiveness businesses are now experiencing their vulnerability to supply chain disturbances. Although more literature is appearing on this subject, there is a need for an integrated framework to support the analysis and design of robust food supply chains. In this chapter we present such a framework. We define the concept of robustness and classify supply chain disturbances, sources of food supply chain vulnerability, and adequate redesign principles and strategies to achieve robust supply chain performances. To test and illustrate its applicability, the research framework is applied to a meat supply chain.

Using vulnerability performance indicators to attain food supply chain robustness

High effectiveness and leanness of modern supply chains (SCs) increase their vulnerability, i.e. susceptibility to disturbances reflected in non-robust SC performances. Both the SC management literature and SC professionals indicate the need for the development of SC vulnerability assessment tools. In this article, a new method for vulnerability assessment, the VULA method, is presented. The VULA method helps to identify how much a company would underperform on a specific Key Performance Indicator in the case of a disturbance, how often this would happen and how long it would last. It ultimately informs the decision about whether process redesign is appropriate and what kind of redesign strategies should be used in order to increase the SC's robustness. The applicability of the VULA method is demonstrated in the context of a meat SC using discrete-event simulation to conduct the performance analysis.

How position, velocity, and temporal information combine in the prospective control of catching:data and model

The cerebral cortex contains circuitry for continuously computing properties of the environment and one's body, as well as relations among those properties. The success of complex perceptuomotor performances requires integrated, simultaneous use of such relational information. Ball catching is a good example as it involves reaching and grasping of visually pursued objects that move relative to the catcher. Although integrated neural control of catching has received sparse attention in the neuroscience literature, behavioral observations have led to the identification of control principles that may be embodied in the involved neural circuits. Here, we report a catching experiment that refines those principles via a novel manipulation. Visual field motion was used to perturb velocity information about balls traveling on various trajectories relative to a seated catcher, with various initial hand positions. The experiment produced evidence for a continuous, prospective catching strategy, in which hand movements are planned based on gaze-centered ball velocity and ball position information. Such a strategy was implemented in a new neural model, which suggests how position, velocity, and temporal information streams combine to shape catching movements. The model accurately reproduces the main and interaction effects found in the behavioral experiment and provides an interpretation of recently observed target motion-related activity in the motor cortex during interceptive reaching by monkeys. It functionally interprets a broad range of neurobiological and behavioral data, and thus contributes to a unified theory of the neural control of reaching to stationary and moving targets.