Between Mapping, Sonification and Composition: Responsive Audio Environments in Live Performance

This paper describes recent work on a large-scale, interactive theater performance entitled Schwelle as a platform to pose critical questions around the conception, design and implementation of what is commonly labeled responsive audio environments. The authors first discuss some principal issues in the design of responsive audio environments specifically within the domain of stage performance, addressing existing human-computer interaction paradigms and discussing three key areas: sensing, mapping and data sonification. Next, we discuss larger questions of composition in relation to these key areas, suggesting that potential strategies cross three different domains: mapping within algorithmic composition, data sonification techniques, and time-based evolutionary processes emerging from dynamical systems theory. We then examine in detail the recent work on Schwelle, which employs real time, distributed sensor data to drive a continuous dynamical systembased composition engine. The...

• Type: Conference
• Year: 2007
• Where: CMMR
• Authors: Christopher L. Salter, Marije A. J. Baalman, Daniel Moody-Grigsby
• Keywords: CMMR 2007, Dynamical System, Key Areas, Music, Responsive Audio Environments