May 2005

Developing the Music & Machines initiative Bennett Hogg (ICMuS) and Sally Jane Norman (Culture Lab) jointly organised a half-day event which again involved theoretical and hands-on, creative practice-engaged presentations, and which again attracted a diverse audience from different schools and faculties. The general theme of the event revolved around the extent to which new instruments/ interfaces solicit or impose the carryover of familiar behaviours and associations.

What kinds of interface metaphors are likely to enrich new affordances, and how can they best be mapped to new instruments?

• (How) can we design instruments/ interfaces that encourage or require more active interpretation on the part of users?

• (How) can auditory interfaces be extended to enhance creative engagement?

• (How) can artistic mappings be reconciled with industrial production of technically constrained sonic grammars in auditory display design?

Guest speakers
Dr William Gaver, senior research fellow leading the Royal College of Art Equator team in London , has a background in psychology and politics, and has worked at Apple Computer and Rank Xerox EuroPARC. Bill’s research topics range from everyday listening to technology-mediated social behaviour; he is developing a conceptual framework to explore digital devices that offer ludic opportunities in everyday life.

Dr Paul Vickers, lecturer-researcher at Northumbria University School of Informatics. Paul’s research on programme auralisation relates to auditory display and involves use of sound to represent or display information where previously only visual techniques were used. Auditory display, the acoustic sibling of visualisation, links with Paul’s work on sonification techniques to map data sets to music.

Hands-on demonstrations of instrumental techniques
Paul Bell, John Ferguson and Will Schrimshaw, International Centre for Music Studies (ICMuS), School of Arts & Cultures

Moderators:
Bennett Hogg, ICMuS
Sally Jane Norman , Culture Lab