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On a technical level, my research is at first made of a sound collection.

In the studio, I then compose as a 3D sound collage for a performance, augmented by motion sensors.

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The notion of ethnoscape, defined by Arjun Appadurai, makes it possible to develop reflection. According to the Indian anthropologist, there are indeed several types of scapes: mediascapes, technoscapes, soundscapes and ethnoscapes. All referred to the fluid dimension of the landscape.

Related to the act of migration, ethnoscapes are landscapes that migrants recompose with their migratory communities. Like spaces of repair, they become spaces of mediation between the world in which they enter and the one they have left. Ethnoscapes are comparable to landscapes that form moving groups according to their own origins.

The interest of the notion of scape comes from its ability to relativize the notion of landscape through the relational prism of the environment to the atmosphere. In this, it renews the supposedly objectivist vision that Western sciences (ecology, sociology, economics) seek to bring to migratory phenomena.

Notably in that the mode of existence of the ethnoscape no longer refers to the center or even to the structure. Its fluid nature allows us to glimpse a certain architecture of the structures of migration:

“Locality is primarily about relationship and context, rather than scale or space. I see it as a complex phenomenological quality, formed by a series of links between the feeling of social immediacy, the technologies of interactivity and the relativity of contexts."

Appadurai, Arjun. Modernity at large: Cultural dimensions of globalization. Vol. 1. U of Minnesota Press, 1996.

Applied to the social dynamics relating to migratory phenomena, the remark then makes possible the emergence of new landscapes. Landscapes are not only carriers of meaning, but also of capacity for dialogue. In this, they bring new definitions of spaces: transitory, mobile and fluid.

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Now considering the notion of landscape in the light of that of cosmophany, Augustin Berque describes, this time, the phenomenon as that of emergence. In the sense that the landscape manifests itself:

“The universe did not wait to be called “universe” to be what it is. The problem with the landscape is that it requires someone to look at it, to represent it and to represent it to oneself, in particular through words. It is not a simple physical fact (in which case it would be only a portion of the terrestrial expanse), nor even a simple biophysical fact (in which case it would only be a question of the environment); it is a relationship that demands, specifically, that there exist not only human beings, but human beings who look at this as a landscape."

Berque, Augustin. La pensée paysagère. Paris: Archibooks, 2008.

From the etymological point of view, the word cosmophany refers to the Greek cosmos which designates a closed world governed by an order, and to the verb phainô “to manifest, to appear, to be obvious”. Cosmophany is the way in which the world appears to those who observe it, while seeking to represent it to themselves.

If each individual corresponds to a way of seeing, the manifested reality does not attach so much to the landscape object, nor to what it contains, but to the perception of the environment. The "new mode of the reality of the landscape" then takes into account the landscape which does not suppose the gaze of man on it in order to exist (its physical reality) and the represented landscape (its representation via the history and culture of its observer).

The notion of cosmophany directly concerns the whole of the progress of the human sciences in that it integrates a certain awareness of pluralism. With pluralism the idea that several possible worlds are coexisting.

Where so-called “intelligent” objects populate our daily lives today, they also act on the production of sound or visual forms that surround us. Their mere presence now gives us the ability to make ourselves authors of atmospheres as well as landscapes. Their simple manipulation invites us today to rethink the articulations of our gestures to them. How many times a day do we manipulate human data, in such a way as to create a link, to create meaning? The takes they offer us invite us to write new types of scores of gestures and actions.

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Following the development of the CoSiMa technology, one could for example imagine the setting up of collective structures dedicated to storytelling games, as practices that facilitate multicultural cohabitation.

On the other hand, and linked to the notion of ethnoscape, it seems that the concept of cosmophany in turn makes it possible to revisit the generation of atmospheres from a series of connected objects.

Where each landscape reality emerges from this encounter between point of view and landscape, here we are at the crossroads of the emic and etic planes. Being able to share one's perception of the landscape (one's own point of view) allows not only to affirm one's reality, but also to have access to a better definition of one's perception.

And in this, being able to share your story, loaded with the colors of which only the locality can depict the most beautiful effects, would perhaps allow everyone to tell their truth about a world in which they would become the actor, according to the movement. the return effect of its narrativity. Saying is already doing, in a way: the narrator is the inventor of a cosmos.

Becoming the author of his gesture, each seeks to find his place in a whole. Learning to listen, allows you to come and play with others, encouraging the composition of varied sound or visual landscapes. Everyone can shape it to their liking.

Seeking to demonstrate the active capacity as well as the potential for transformation of our daily lives carried by connected objects.

In other words, how to stay in control of the accelerated diffusion of technologies that are disrupting our environments?

The generation of a collaborative universe relativizes the affordance induced by technology or the traditional competition driven by individualistic values, imposed by industry.

And in this, working on a collective listening game with the aim of generating a contributing soundscape, could be considered a work of mediation.

The awakening to the perception as to the manifestation of sensitive landscapes would undoubtedly allow us to review the balance of power, seeking to favor the quality of the relationships.

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All the research project follows the first protocole we developed for MovA

[ * see : http://mova.one ]

That means, at first, a Soundwalk. Walk, listen and trace words, figure a memory of sound within the body. What is the perception like?

Then we proceed in a collect. We do record sounds.

Then we come to play sound in a studio. We practice active listening, describe sounds and the effects of its perception on memory and time.

Then we do invite the participants to trace their sound walk, on a kind of a mind map, that can become a score.

One can either : dance, or perform what is written on his map.

Or perform the sound itself.

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Julien Gauthier, who worked with us at the sound collection.

Jasch, who helped the first sound collection and the design of the apparatus.

Frederic Bevilacqua, who helped all along the process.

IRCAM ISMM team to allow me develop my research and assist all my workshops.

Hortense Kack, who has been the very first dancer using the motion sensors, and helped me conceive a protocol for any kind of users.

Yolande Cartier, who helped the conception of this precise workshop, and worked at developing performing soundscapes feedbacks.

Special thanks to Mahdokt Karampour who hosted the project at the Red Cross refuge.

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The sounds we use later in the workshop come from soundwalks sessions.

It is a parcours, a path. A relationship between a listening person and a sound environment.

When the person is starting listening, he quickly acknowledges that his own body is a sounding body.

Listening, then, in itself, becomes a performance.

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R. Murray Schafer with his very famous book : The Turning of the world : Towards a theory of Soundscape design (1980),  launched the concept of sound walks and listening walks.

During my own practice research on sound collection, listening, and performing the soundscapes, I designed a protocole that I believed, was helping the following of the workshop process.

[ SOUNDWALK ]

This is an experience,

This is not an exercice.

This is a full body experiment.

The objective of a soundwalk is to listen and feel the sound :

How does the sound affect you ?

You will document you sound experiment process.

The documentation is both : a collection and a collective process.

Be aware of the others in the space.
Map out your sensations linked to sound.

The listening,

The strolling is done text, then image, then gesture, then sound again.

On the spot:

Write your your own experience of sound:

- What can you hear ?
- How does it feel ?

- Where or how does the sound affect you ?

After the sound walk, close your eyes and map out your travel through the space.

Imagine your walk like a score.

What happened :
- How can you represent the path ?

- How then can your represent the meeting of the sound ?

- What kind of sound touched you on the path ?

- Where did it touch you ?

On a map

Draw your experience

- where did you go ?

- where did you stop ?

- where did the sounds come from ?

- how can you represent them ?

Compare

Compare your own map to the trajectory you actually crossed: what can you say about it ?

Later in the studio

If you could dance your score: how would this dance be?
[do it]

What are the sounds that make you move and how ?

[create a sound object collection]

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The sound collection is made through various processes.

One can gather sounds using technologies and microphones.

But one another can gather sounds using words, texts, images, or maps.

One can map out his path and remind the sounds he heard in specific places, and annotate them.

This way of collecting sounds allows to build up scores.

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Todays research question is the result of a long process of exploring dance & sound in a urban context.

For my PhD research and way after, I spent hours following dancers, from Kerala, to Bombay to Paris, to New York and back, exploring their journey through cities.

I understood that certain dance steps emerged from their direct relationship to the dancer’s environment.

The city appeared to me as such a big heart:

Its sounds were beating a rhythm,

Drawing shapes through people's bodies.

Sound expert also noticed that each kinesthesic response to certain frequencies are unique. They are kind of blue prints of our identities.

For that mean, I developed various apparatuses for sound & augmented performance.

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The first step of the process to interact with soundscapes is to invite participants to listen to our sound collection and perform whatever they feel like.

Here, we started with the waves.
The collective dance you can see on the video appeared in our final performance.

The sound of the waves narrated the movement of migration and the difficulty for these kids to reach the French soil, even if some of them travelled by trucks or planes.

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Giorgio Agamben is one of the leading figures in Italian and contemporary continental philosophy.

In his text What is an apparatus? Agamben's leading essay illuminates the notion:

"I will call an apparatus, literally anything that has in some way the capacity to capture, orient, determine, intercept, model, control, or secure the gestures, behaviors, opinions, or discourses of living beings."

Seen from this perspective, Agamben's work, like Foucault's, may be described as the identification and investigation of apparatuses, together with incessant attempts to find new ways to dismantle them.

* Giorgio Agamben, What is an apparatus ? (2006)

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Here are some video extracts about how kids perform their own sound collections.

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"Silence Please" is one of Jasch' favorite injonction.

To listen, one needs to make silence.
Moreover, to hear a sound, one needs to be present.
There is a constant relationship between oneself and sound environment. Sound in itself is a relationship. Sounds need ears to be heard.

Here is the Sound Collection of the migrants adolescents edited by Julien Gauthier.

I invite you to listen to it.

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For the last 10 years, my ethnographical research is based on performance & narrative apparatuses.

For Sounding Bodies, I designed an experimental research program for migrant children staying at a Red Cross shelter in Paris.

Throughout a series of workshops, I invited migrant kids to collect sounds.

I then conceived an apparatus for motion sensors to play [with], and perform soundscapes.

What kind of sounds have they collected?
And how did their bodies manifest soundscapes?

This is what I am going to show here.

Two concepts are at work in my essay: The one of cosmophanies, described by Augustin Berque, and the other of ethnoscapes, defined by Arjun Appadurai.

First, the word cosmophany refers to the Greek Cosmos and to the verb φαίνω (phainò), which means: “to manifest, to appear, to be obvious”. Cosmophany is the way in which the world appears to those who observe it.

Second and related to the act of migration, ethnoscapes are those landscapes that migrants recompose with their communities.

If, to every individual corresponds a way of seeing, perceiving the landscapes, and if the ethnoscapes are formed by moving groups, rose to a fundamental level, my research question could be: How do people resonate with sounds? Resonate in the sense of moving, playing, acting, making decisions throughout one's life.

The other pending question would necessarily be: how to transmit sound perception?

In other words, how can one imagine designing a sound environment for a better future?

My idea is to postulate new forms of soundscapes, as spaces of repair or spaces of mediation between the world migrants are entering and the one they have left.

My argument is based on the fact that perception is a cultural process, which we can learn and pass on.

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Anne Dubos is a social anthropologist and media artist.
She holds a PhD in Social Anthropology from the École des Hautes Études en Sciences Sociales (EHESS Paris 2013).
She spent ten years of extended fieldwork analysing gesture transmission in South-Indian theatre.

In 2011, she obtained an MA in Political Sciences and Political Arts (SPEAP) at Sciences-Po, IEP Paris under the supervision of Bruno Latour.
During a post-doc research at the Institut de Geography Alpine and PACTE in the territory of the Vercors she investigated how humans trace their own perceptions of landscapes and dwelling in the mountains (2019, 2020).

In 2017, she was a social sciences research fellow at the Institute for Advanced Studies, IAS, Nantes where she remains a correspondent member.

In 2019, she was awarded the ARCADI prize for “some_augmented_gestures”, involving performing environmental sound with sensors.
In 2018, the DRAC Rhône-Alpes funds her project “Sonographies”, in which she compares human traces to scores. In 2021 and 22, the French Institute funds her project “Cosmophanies” about Romanian soundscapes.

She has published about perceptions and practice based research (2013, 2016, 2019), the notion of serendipity as a motor for knowledge (2017), and a series of interviews with artists (2015, 2019).

https://annedubos.com

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ISMM - IRCAM

The ISMM Team at Ircam conducts research and development on interactive music systems, gesture and sound modeling, interactive music synthesis, gesture capture systems and motion interfaces. The applications cover the performing arts but also the audio industry, sound design, gaming, and emerging applications such rehabilitation with auditory feedback.

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Presentation of the CoSiMa project, June 2 2017, IRCAM, Manifeste Festival

The research project CoSiMa is a part of a powerful movement that, in the past 10 years, has witnessed changes in medias and their relationships with users with the emergence of tangible interfaces, augmented reality, and the web environment. Its aim is to explore these new relationships via new interfaces and collaborative tools for creation based on the latest web and mobile technologies.

The CoSiMa project focused on the production of open tools and an authoring platform accessible for experiments with a large range of applications. Its applications include audiovisual installations, group performances, innovative participative experiences, interactive fictions in the framework of artistic and educational projects, innovative public services, special events, and communication.

Productions from the CoSiMa project (2013-2017): Conference and collective interactive experiences.
ANR project coordinated by IRCAM (UMR STMS Ircam / CNRS / Université Pierre et Marie Curie)
Partners: EnsadLab, ESBA TALM, ID Scenes, No Design, Orbe

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The ISMM Team at Ircam conducts research and development on interactive music systems, gesture and sound modeling, interactive music synthesis, gesture capture systems and motion interfaces. The applications cover the performing arts but also the audio industry, sound design, gaming, and emerging applications such rehabilitation with auditory feedback.

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* Through the next posts, one can listen to every sound collected.

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https://soundcloud.com/anne-dubos-627179477/lanneau

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https://soundcloud.com/anne-dubos-627179477/dans-le-tunnel-les-churs

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https://soundcloud.com/anne-dubos-627179477/tunnel-tranto

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https://soundcloud.com/anne-dubos-627179477/velo

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https://soundcloud.com/anne-dubos-627179477/les-feuilles

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Back in the studio,  I offer the sound gatherers to listen to their collections.

My idea is to let people listen to the sounds, and let them express freely. They can do it with words at first.

But I then invite them to manifest sounds as they feel it in their bodies.

Later on, we do collect again traces of their experiments in the studio.

They trace the path they remember, on a paper.
As a map.

The map becomes a score for the next performative stage of the experiment.

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What interests my research is that any technological apparatus poses the question of remediation of gesture: once it is reincorporated, it gets played and arranged by machines (Schnell, 2013).

As the use of technology requires to question the transformation of gestures into texts, codes, and images, the key topic of this course will be: how to build society through media, devices, or any technological apparatus (Latour, 1992).

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How does it work?

The R-IoT module allows for sensing movement, processing and wireless transmission through WiFi.

It is developed as an essential brick towards creating novel motion-based musical instruments and body-based media interaction.

The R-IoT gives sound-feedback to the performer, according to his motion flow.

To summurize, R-Iots employ the same data as your smartphone. That means : Speed in relation with gravity (that is measured by the accelerometer).

And the orientation of the sensor (that is measured by the compass)

* R-IoT has been developed initially by the ISMM and PiP teams at IRCAM-Centre Pompidou (STMS Lab IRCAM-CNRS-UPMC) within the CoSiMa project (funded by ANR) and the H2020 MusicBricks and Rapid-Mix projects funded by the European Union’s Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme.

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Softwarely speaking, coupled to the use of the motion sensors, I do use a "patch" programmed in Max and

developpe by IRCAM Paris.

* The version of the patch I used had been designed by Jasch and programmed by Frederic Bevilacqua (IRCAM - ISMM).

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Sounding bodies, apparatus design & conception

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The difficulty when one thinks of working with motion sensors is to represent the body in a geometric dimension.

Indeed, the compass draws like a cube around the dancer's body, that is controlled by orienting the sensor from one side to the other.

The accelerometer, on the other hand, makes it possible to measure the qualities of movement.

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sensors - in this video you can see how sensors work

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This video shows how the sensors work.

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Before the workshop, I invited Yolande Cartier, a professional dancer, to interpret the sound collection.

Our experiment gave birth to a serial of interviews, where she expresses how she felt, interpreting sounds of nature through a dance proposal.

[ see below ]

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performing the soundscapes: concepts & development

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performing the soundscapes: concepts & development

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The concept of "performing the soundscapes have been developed in collaboration with the artist Jan Schacher (Jasch).

According to our research, the concept of "Performing the Soundscape” bridges listening and recording of sonic environments to gestural, embodied interaction with sound and explores modes of re-mediation and transmission of auditory experiences.

It investigates how the effect of engaged listening to our sonic environments and the active remediation of sonic traces in performance alters our relationship to sound and sound making.

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Many words have been useful in order to develop this research. Here is a short glossary of reference:

Listening is one of our fundamental ways of engaging with the world.

Sounding environments, both artificial and natural, play an essential role in providing the sense of embeddedness.

Embodied interaction through Gesture links in an active, non-verbal engagement to our auditory perception and provides a way of creating direct relationships with our social and cultural context.

The theory of enactive relations shows that meaning is generated in the adaptive cycle between corporeal presence, perception, and actions in our environment.

Re-Mediation is the act of translating experiences across different media and contexts.

In the context of sounding processes in the arts, the translations carry from the physical phenomena, to recording technologies, to musical transformations, to perceptual, affective and social impacts.

Coined by the acoustic ecology movement, the term soundscape provides a historical perspective and is deliberately selected with the aim to effect its redefinition through active performative engagements.

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jasch - electronic musician, digital artist

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on sound perception & on the interview process

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on sound perception & on the interview process

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While working with the idea of "performing the soundscapes" I do collect people impressions on sounds and movement.

I tend to document the relationship people nourish with sound.

This process is interesting in the sense it shows many more similarities between people than differences.

- Where did the sound touch you?
- What part of your body reacted to what kind of sounds? are my first questions.

The performer's answers guide the rest of the interview.

*

Sounds can be explored through a diverse variety of sensibilities. The dance answers can be more or less refined, according to his/her practice level.

But what I noticed is mainly that sounds "do" the same things to the people.

*

For example : When I come to play a recording of a metro station in Paris, almost everybody laid down on the ground. Some of them started shivering.

There is no joy in a subway station sound.
Joy and warmth always disappear from people's bodies while listening to it.

*

I also noticed that the waves proposal always bring people to roll and curve their bodies, as if they were carried by the ocean itself.

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paths & traces, workshop at Red Cross Shelter, Paris, 2019

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some other works done with the motion sensors

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some other works done with the motion sensors

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We have been working on many various projects (with students, with dancers, with singers, architects, designers, kids, etc.).

The full collection made me design this very last project, where I tried to use technologies and sound capture, to verify an anthropological hypothesis : how can we say that our bodies are cosmophanes?

In other terms : to what extent are our bodies impregnated by the sounds that surround them?

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In collaboration with, Joël Chevrier (professor of physics at the Grenoble Alpes University), Anne Dubos (anthropologist and transmedia artist), Loïc Lobet (designer), and Florent Deloison (artist and developper), we proposed a two-week workshop on Smartphones and Movement at the ENSCI - Les Ateliers design school.

The workshop united a group of about twenty students who worked in small groups on the design of different projets including performances, installations, and gadgets involving smartphones in motion, as well as concepts of controlling common smartphone applications through movements.

Here are some of the projets developed during the workshop.

Physical Player

Physical Player is a performance for three performers wearing mobile devices on their arm. The performers move in a large space interpreting trajectories and symbols marked on the floor. Their motion induces events and changes of sound and music environment rendered through loudspeakers distributed in the space. The mobile devices analyse the performers' movements distinguishing different states like standing still, walking, running ( fast and slow), jumping, and somersault to control three different tracks of an interactive audio player.

Sorcières

Sorcières is a performance that integrates some of the interactive web audio applications we created at the beginning the CoSiMa project (see apps.cosima.ircam.fr/checks). During the performance, the performers invite the public to join their choreography and to produce sound with their smartphones.

Le petit avion

The project The Little Plane transforms a smartphone into a toy that makes sound when it is moved. In addition, the toy can analyse and display the motion data trajectories and can communicate them to a public display. Obviously, the plane could be a car, a boat, a train or anything else that makes sound when it moves.

Scorpion

The Scorpion web application transforms subtile motion and vibrations into sound. The applications has been used by the students to create a tactile sound installation.

The application has also been used in " L'Atelier tactile ", a playground for little children created by Marion Voillot. In this scenario, the children search - by carefully touching and listening - for objects (i.e. mobile devices) that generate sound and light hidden in fabrics of different textures embedded into a wooden structure.

🔗 Good Vibrations (3/3) : Le Smartphone et le Scorpion (article on the Scorpion project in French)

Interactive Storytelling

Another follow-up project of the ENSCI workshop was an application dedicated to little children created in collaboration with Marion Voillot. The application supports a scenario of storytelling where children accompany different parts of a story with different gestures that are translated into sound by smartphones they hold in their hands. The movements and sounds evoke actions and motion that occur in the story (i.e. swimming, wading trough water, pushing aside the scrub, wind over a meadow, storm) and where chosen to stimulate the children's imagination, but also to reinforce coordination, memory, and listening.

🔗 Le jeune enfant, le numérique et l'école demain (article by Marion Voillot on her exploration of digital technology for little children)

A second version of the Collective Loops installation has been shown during the Ircam Forum Workshops on November 25 and 26, 2015.

The installation features a collaborative version of a step sequencer that uses the visitor's smartphones to produce sound. The sequencer is graphically represented by a circle of 8 sectors projected on the floor. The sectors light up in a clockwise motion following the beats of the sequence.

When the players connect to the installation through a web page, they choose an available sector, and thus, their step in the loop. The players can control the sounds (i.e. notes in a melody or bass line and percussion sounds) that are played on their smartphone at the corresponding beat of the sequence through a simple graphical interface on their smartphones. The selected sounds are also displayed in the corresponding sector of the circle on the floor.

Positioned around the circle, the players collaborate on creating melodies and rhythm patterns rendered through their smartphones.

The application uses a first complete version of the CoSiMa platform entirely based on web standards.

Design and development :
Ircam: Norbert Schnell, Jean-Philippe Lambert, Benjamin Matuszewski, Sebastien Robaszkiewicz Orbe: Xavier Boissarie, Florent Dubois, Gregory Cieslik, Tomek Jarolim, Quentin Levigneron EnsadLab: Samuel Bianchini, Dominique Cunin, Oussama Mubarak, Jonathan Tanant ID Scènes: Christophe Aubry, Fabrice Auchere NoDesign: Jean-Louis Frechin, Uroš Petrevski ESBA TALM: Christophe Domino

Norbert Schnell presented the CoSiMa project at Ableton's Loop Summit for Music Makers. During the presentation, the audience performed with various CoSiMa prototype applications using their smartphones.

Terminal is an interactive installation that has been created in collaboration with Chloé and the Scale collective for the Paris Musique Club. The installation will be shown from October 24, 2015 to January 31, 2016 at the Gaité Lyrique.

The project transposes the musical elements and mobile interactions of the Chloé ⨉ Ircam concert into the situation of an exhibition.
The installation features a looped 15-minutes 4-channel music track staged in a 7-meters corridor with 21 smartphones aligned along the wall and luminous lines running on the floor.

Similar as in the concert, visitors can connect to the installation with their mobile devices to participate. At given passages of the music track, the participants are invited to play sound with touch and motion interfaces that appear on their mobile device. The graphical animations and sound of their device are echoed by one of the smartphones on the wall.

Every now and then, waves of sound textures appear on the participants' mobile devices. In addition, visitors can use a wall-mounted tablet to distribute sound textures over the smartphones on the wall. The light on the floor reacts on the music as well as the visitors' interactions with the tablet.

We did it again. After the Fete de la musique, the Chloe × Ircam concert came to the Nuit Blanche at the Gaïté Lyrique invited by I Love Transmedia.

This video summarizes the concert from a rather technical point of view.

Like at the Fete de la musique, the audience participates in this concert by connecting their smartphones to the local Wi-Fi network Chloe × Ircam and by opening the web page chloe.ircam.fr in their browser. Once connected, the participants are asked to indicate their approximate position on map of the concert space. During the concert, Chloé can move sounds over the audience's smartphones - using four tablets integrated into her setting - and let appear dedicated sound interfaces on the touchscreens. The concert starts and ends with everybody playing with Chloé's whispering voice.

More images of the concert are published on Chloé's web site.

CoSiMa has participated with Murmures Urbains at 2015 edition of the festival Chalon dans la rue from June 24 to 26.

The Orbe collective has presented three experimental scenarios of augmented soundwalks. The participants equipped with a smartphone are invited to experience an augmented audio reality that reacts on their position, trajectory and movement (using GPS, BTLE beacons and motion sensors). Each scenario proposes a different narrative and leads the participants on different possible trajectories through the same district of Chalon-sur-Saône. The trajectories take between 30 minutes and 2 hours depending on the participants' preference and their engagement with the proposed activities.

The trajectories of all participants have been recorded and visualized on a screen at the arrival point where the team invited the participants to a debriefing of their experience.

The French Ministère de la culture et de la communication asked IRCAM to imagine a participative concert for the Fête de la musique '15, whose theme was " Vivre ensemble la musique " ("To live music together"). We partnered with Chloé in order to design the interactive live experience Chloé × Ircam. During that experience, Chloé alternates between moments when she plays alone - partially distributing sound on the audience's smartphones -, and moments when she leaves room for the audience to play with her using their smartphones, thus enabling a musical dialog between her and the audience.

The concert took place on June 21st at the Jardin du Palais-Royal in Paris. At the beginning of the concert, participants are invited to join a WiFi network and connect to a URL ( chloe.ircam.fr). After they indicate their positions in the venue thanks to a simple interface, the experience can begin. In addition to her usual live electronics setup, Chloé has four tablets where each participant shows up as a circle at the indicated position. Touching these circles she can play different sound textures on the participants' smartphones. When moving her fingers over the touch screens the sound textures move over the space of the audience. On an additional tablet, Chloé can enable four different interfaces (i.e. simple instruments) on the participants' devices that they can play by touching the screen and shaking the device.

The preparation of this project took three months, during which we made two live tests, one at IRCAM in the beginning of May with around 30 colleagues and friends, and one at the Centre Pompidou on June 9 with over 150 participants.

Tags concert

During IRCAM's open house on June 6th, CoSiMa presented two different projects, Collective Loops and Woodland.

Collective Loops

Collective Loops is a collaborative version of an 8-step loop sequencer. When visitors access the webpage of the installation with their smartphone, they are automatically assigned to an available step in the sequence loop, and their smartphone plays a sound when it is their turn. The participants control the pitch of the sound through the inclination of their smartphones. The participants are invited to collaboratively create a melody of 8 pitches that circulates in a steady tempo over their smartphones.

A circular visualization of the sequencer is projected on the floor. The projection consists of a circle divided in 8 sections that light up in counterclockwise circular movement synchronized with the sounds emitted by the smartphones. Each section of the projection is further divided into 12 radial segments that display the pitch of the corresponding sequence step (i.e. controlled through the inclination of the participants smartphone).

The 8 first participants who connect to the sequencer have a celesta sound, the 8 following can play with a drum kit, the 8 last have a bass sound. All together, 24 players can create complex rhythmic and melodic patterns.

Woodland

Woodland is a very early stage prototype that aims at explaining how natural audio effects (such as reverb) are created in the natural environment. For this, we create a setting where each participant is a tree in a forest. At some point, a designated player "throws a sound" in the forest by swinging his / her smartphone upwards. After a few seconds of calculations, the sound falls on one tree; then we hear the first wave of resonances when the sound reaches the other trees; and so on recursively until the sound ultimately vanishes.

In order to make people understand what is going on, we can control several parameters of the simulation such as the speed of sound in the air, the absorbance of the air, the type of sound (with a hard or soft attack), etc. That way, if we set the parameters to be similar to the natural setting, we hear the same reverb as we would hear in a forest. But if for example we slow down the speed of sound, we can hear a very slow version of how this natural reverb is built, hearing each echo one by one.

This very first prototype was very promising, and further developments might include a visualization on the floor of the different sounds that bounce from trees to trees to create that reverb effect.

Tags collective sound check, installation, workshop

When Cyril Balit participated to the CoSiMa demonstration at Paris Face Cachée, he asked us if we would be willing to present our work to the Best of Web 2015 conference in Paris, which is a compilation of the best talks of 8 Parisian web meet-ups.

So there we went! Together with the WAVE project - the IRCAM Web Audio library on which most of the things we do is based on, see also wavesjs on GitHub) -, we presented our ongoing research and projects. In particular, we took advantage of this event to test a new collaborative experience that would premiere at Fête de la musique (see Chloé × Ircam). With more that 130 connections, it confirmed that we were on the right track for the show! We also got a lot of positive feedback from the JS community on the technologies we are developing.

The slides of the presentation are available here.

Rone was invited to unveil the universe he created for his latest album Créatures at the Palais de Tokyo ( Le Point Perché). Along with illustrations, photographs, binaural experiences and video games, CoSiMa presented Créatures & Cie - Collective Sound Check, a spontaneous collective performance that enables the audience to play with Rone's creatures. By simply opening a web page, the visitors of the exhibition can discover a novel way of exploring Rone's musical universe and fill in the space with his sound creatures.

http://cosima.ircam.fr/creatures-et-cie (from a smartphone)

This performance is a first step towards a new generation of interactive musical experiences that Rone is developing in collaboration with IRCAM.

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In collaboration with, Joël Chevrier (professor of physics at the Grenoble Alpes University), Anne Dubos (anthropologist and transmedia artist), Loïc Lobet (designer), and Florent Deloison (artist and developper), we proposed a two-week workshop on Smartphones and Movement at the ENSCI - Les Ateliers design school.

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1. [ In the cave ]

A – Do you want to testify about the cave sound performance?

Y – I thought there would be a resonance, but there is note. What struck me were the drops of water. And that's great because it's completely eclectic.

At the end there was a tempo which was regular, there is something which flowed very regularly and therefore no surprise.

On the other hand, the whole first part was very irregular and… really, it was completely lines.

Line to stand, line to jump, finally something that always tries to rise, it's quite strange.

There is water falling, each time, and finally the impression or the image always made me want, on the contrary, to try to go in the opposite direction of the ground.

I hardly went to the ground, I don't think, I don't remember.

The drop draws like a trajectory, and this trajectory goes in the opposite direction to the direction that gravity is asking of it.

That's kind of what it did in the body.

There was a slightly nonchalant side that I like, even though I have the impression of having danced neoclassical throughout the whole part of... It's been twenty years...

I would have had pointes, it would have been perfect.
There is a bit of that, I think.

It was very surprising, it was swinging a little but not too much.

Toum, it falls, in fact, there really is this image.
Like what the sound is loaded with a story, and finally this story transforms the body.

The body has its history, but the sound also has its history.
So that's what's interesting, how theses two come together... And suddenly, even as I thought to myself, "It's water falling", finally the body performs !

Well, there you go, I wouldn't have known how I was going to dance it.

So it's quite surprising and interesting to experience that.

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A - Can you tell me how it felt to dance on the waves?

Y - The desire either to go with the wave, or to stop to listen to the wave, or to try to accompany the movement of the wave in secret...

Sometimes there are slightly incidental noises that you don't recognize until afterwards, a dog or whatever... Well, something you can't detect clearly.

Not the roar, but this sea is occupying all the sound space, and the body, my body, before rather wanting to undulate and go in sinuosities, while the path was rather straight.

Is it because my brain hasn't distorted to sound yet?
But the tracing on the ground was in my mind much more linear than, ultimately, the impression of the wave.

There weren't too many curves in the drawing.
There was also something chosen from the suspension, which instead produced an idea of ​​verticality.

Because it was to give a counter-idea, precisely, of this horizontality of the sea which tries a little to go in the height but which does not succeed.

A – Had you ever danced to sounds of nature?

Y – I had already danced in nature… I had already danced silently, therefore imagining a sound accompaniment.
But as we just did, I don't believe, I don't remember.

A - Was it difficult for you?

Y - No. To be accompanied by an element, no. It's nature.
I don't think it's a difficulty, because there's a rhythm.
And either we decide to listen only to the rhythm – and we can even guess it at times, or anticipate when the wave arrives.

Body impression can be a game, thinking,
- "Am I going to reach at the same time as it?"
There's kind of a suspension, and then it goes "fshrouffffff".

That sound, we don't know if it's going to be huge or very small, but we know it's going to happen.

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A – And what did you think of the bird's choir?

Y – At first it's a symphony, and then you can find soloists and it's quite funny, because you can humanize the bird and depending on its song you can completely invent what you want make up, so at one point there's one that's pretty high pitched, I have no idea what it is, he kept doing stuff like, "Tala, tala, ta!" taow, talalaba! »

I found that one quite funny, and in fact, suddenly, apriori it makes a kind of big sound mass with a depth because the pitches of sound are not the same, and afterwards we can downright have little solos that actually change the nature of the movement.

At the beginning the sound was completely broken, fractured, very, very light, great distances crossing space but being a little disorderly, a puppet that is a little broken, moving like that, and on a cadence that was always relatively…

I was going to say the same but in fact it's not at all true, it wasn't at all the same all the time…

But there it is, a sort of continuous path in a cadence… Nothing coordinated...

And then in the end, when you just listen to the bird, if it's really the same...

It sounds a bit like a melody and suddenly it's not all the same body trajectory, it's longer, less fragmented.

There are jolts, since the song is particular, but it does not give the same thing at all.

A little space. It is as if it were directions that we gave to the body with this song, whereas on the mass it was more around you, inward.

In the feeling it was a bit like that.
And afterwards, to play with the two and…

Always quite light, in general, rather cheerful too, if we had to have an emotion on the thing.

I don't know, it makes you laugh because it's gay.

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The very first step of this project was designed for MovA Lab Days, that happened in Nantes, at Stereolux, in April 2019.

With the help of the Swiss sound artist Jasch, I proposed to design a performing-listening workshop module, based on a Soundwalk session.

After that, I proposed a Soundlistening session, where I invited the participants to a Soundembodiement session.

NB : MovA is a free research network for movement analysis.
Every year we gather to compare our research questions and offer methodological workshops, with a deep interest in practice based research.
http://mova.one

* I do thank all the Mova participants for helping me reflect on methodological issues.

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15. - 17. April 2019 at Stereolux in Nantes.

The 3rd edition of the movA Lab Days were organised by Anne Dubos from Little Heart Movement and hosted between the 15. and 17. April 2019 at " Le Labo Arts et Tech of Stereolux " by Martin Lambert & Boris Letessier.

Intention of the LabDays

We joined in the MovA network around questions, disciplinary and thematic approaches, which pose problems, not only for the definitions of terms, but also from a methodological point of view. (cf : Bertha's contribution at the Kienberg meeting here and here.) The challenge of these LabDays was to establish "commons" of research in motion & computing, according to a common knowledge practice based on shared experiences.
NB: definition of the term 'commons' : "which belongs or applies to several people, to the collective. Opposed to private or individual".

We work from issues of transmission (analysis, registration, encoding, indexing, annotation, archive) of collective knowledge arising from performance situations, called tacit knowledge or embodied knowledge.

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15. - 17. April 2019 at Stereolux in Nantes. The 3rd edition of the movA Lab Days were organised by Anne Dubos from Little Heart Movement and hosted between the 15. and 17. April 2019 at " Le Labo Arts et Tech of Stereolux " by Martin Lambert & Boris Letessier.

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Back at the refuge, we offered to listen to the collection of sounds.

Most of the collectors were very actively listening at the sounds. Moussa even asked to listen to "the leaves", when he did not seem to have recognize his part of the recording.

I noticed some kind of attachment to the sounds. Each collector wanted to listen to "his" sound, and then discuss it with others. How it felt, why did he chose that particular sound.

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About the broken mirror

During our first MovA meeting, Jasch used the term of the "broken mirror of technology" to try to define what the motion sensors brought to his performance of sound.

http://mova.one/broken_mirror.html

I believe this reflection is very interesting concerning an approach of dance pedagogy. If one wants to transmit the ability to dance with motion sensors, it has to take into account the defaults of technology : the delay added in between gestures and sounds, as the RioTs work on a wi-fi system.

One also has to understand that the perception of the body of the dancer is enraptured by the design of the apparatus for dance.

So in one sense, it kills any sense of freedom.
But once the apparatus is learned, it helps the dancer to know better his own abilities to produce movements.

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During the "Analysing Movement" Workshop in Kienberg, Switzerland on Monday 11/09/2017

Transcript by Anne Dubos - 03/2018

In conversation were:
AD: Anne Dubos
BB: Bertha Bermúdez
FB: Frederic Bevilacqua
JS: Jan Schacher
SdL: Scott deLahunta
(Media file: kienberg_broken_mirror_transcript.mp4)

NB: See also time and keyword index at the bottom of this document

__________________________________________________________________________

00:00 - JS: I think it is an interesting question about the spatial sensing and the local sensing, and also the different types of the local sensing is interesting. So, you have dynamics which is the IMU (inertial measurement unit), then biophysical, pressure ...

I am really interested in bio-signals, myography [measuring muscle-electricity], heart-rate, transpiration... , because I think affect is more to be found in the bio-signals than in the kinematic [data]. Just moving points in space are not really ... conveying much affect, they are just shapes...
00:47 - AD: can you just develop more about that, because I think it's a very interesting point. You are talking about the affect, but what is the affect here?
01:06 - JS: So, affect of whom? is the first question. And in this case, I am talking about the audience affect, because that's whom we communicate to. Expressivity is working on generating affect; that's what the performer does; the performer is shaping whatever they do, their movement, their sound, that can be expressive, without actually having an affect of reaction themselves, you don't need to be affective to produce feelings, you do not need the emotion to produce the emotion, that is an old actor's technique ...

And I mean I think in the Kathakali, the kind of facial things, they do not feel the emotions, they just show them ... and I believe also in the gestural work, apart from the physics and the shape, the mapping, there is also the quality. And the quality to me is the intention; and the intention can be emotion; producing emotion.

And emotion is a high-level effect; the very lowest level I think is the stimulus ... we produce a stimulus in the other - you get a physical reaction: that's the stimulus. And that can generate an affect which is preconscious, sub-personal (not conscious) and then it might generate an emotion which just comes conscious. So, there are these different levels.

And then there is this philosophical idea of affect: the Deleuzian concept of affect as a channel of action on your environment, which I think action complements it, so it is just a meta state of the same thing, and it's being mystified a lot in the Deleuzian contex,t but I think affect for us, working in arts is essential; It think that is one of the key mechanisms of how the communication actually functions.

And so, the technical side does not actually contain that, because it is something that happens in humans, but technical elements are channels through which we transmit stimuli, on a very physical level, so ... we still have to think about that ...

03:46 - AD: I would like you to develop, because you were talking about two different kinds of technology, differentiating emotions and affect ... you have been talking about patterns, and I think it has something to do with the kinesphere ... you were talking about biomechanical data and patterns, and I would be interested if you could develop a little more...

04:20 - JS: I think what I said is that there is a difference between dynamic sensing of the upper body and kinematic sensing of the body ... kinematic sensing means, I think, roughly said, points in space; and points in space do not give you any information except for like, speed and position; you can then start inferring from that, like velocity ...

And there are some invariants in our bodies; we saw at MoCo [Movement and Computing conference, London 2017] a very interesting keynote about speed profiles, movement profiles, that are universal in a way to; because our bodies are made in a certain way like pendulums, and we have inertia and they provide the basis for expressivity.
05:15 - FB: And on that specific point I still think there are things to look at, for expert movements like musicians and dancers do not follow this pattern that has been shown to be very general ...
05:38 - JS: And I think in my case as a musician, in my case with the double bass, I learned to optimize my effort curves: to produce for example a long bow stroke with an equal sound, this is an extreme optimisation of all the forces in my body; of the curved arm and the fulcrum of the string and the bow...

Expert training, the skill is actually obtained through adaptive feedback in my case; through body perception and sound perception coupled, I can start to optimize, this is a real learning circle. The same goes for all, let's say martial arts or the yoga thing, you start to optimize your perception with your body control.

There is another aspect, you were asking about the kinesphere, Anna ...

I think, no I believe that that one fundamental thing that we have is kinaesthetic resonance. So, every gesture produces a kinaesthetic resonance in the viewer ... and that has to do with our body images, with our body schemata that we share to a certain extent...
07:00 - AD: that's where I really disagree ... but we'll talk about it later?
07:05 - JS: Ok, they are culturally shaped, they are individually shaped, so there is a huge variation but I believe there is some basis underneath, which we share, otherwise we would not be able to have kinaesthetic responses.
07:18 - AD: but we have kinaesthetic response with horses
07:21 - JS: Well, because they are still four legged with a head and ears; so, they are still quite close, but can you have a kinaesthetic response with slime mould?
07:32 - AD: it is more difficult but you can try ...
07:36 - JS: But these are different degrees of the scale of related morphologies; I think they are really important, for example if you see robots in the shape of humans moving. You perceive expression...

but it is actually a machine, it's all of you. And so, the kinesphere, that's also a different aspect, that's the movement analysis world ...

For me as an instrumentalist am very interested in having an instrument inside the space, so for example, the double bass is a 108 centimetres of string [length] plus the bow space, that's my space. Everything else is ...

Fred [who is a pianist] has 88 keys plus two pedals and ( showing hands moving as on a keyboard) so that is that space, the affordance space, it's a movement space. And the dancers, you don't have that, but you have the floor, and you have gravity, and you have your physiology, so that is a different type of ...

And the kinesphere belongs rather to the dancer's instrumental affordance space. And I really like comparing I really like comparing the two, because I think dance and music are mirrored twins... like a black-and-white, unequal twin as well... there are some aspects you cannot reconcile

Music always go to an instrument to produce sound.

Dance always is movement. The body is the material, so that is something that you cannot reconcile...

And ... the patterns you were asking about Anna, ...

maybe also goes into the communication theory of sense unit we transmit, and the gesture is a sense unit... a meaningful unit that we transmit.

That's also why I am so obsessed about definition of gesture, because I think, if I press a key on a piano, what's the meaning of the movement? It's actually my intention connected to the sound; the movement is purely functional, but if I press the key with emphasis, like in the 19th century in the romantic pianist's style, then that emphasis is actually the meaning, becomes the gesture, becomes the meaning of the semantic context...

And then what happens with new instrument? When I perform with gloves, 90 percent of these (hand movements) are instrumental actions ... I am also really aware that I am actually producing [shrugs].
10:26 - BB: Potential semantic
10:27 - JS: Potential semantic. But they are actually occurring in the viewer and not in me, so it's again the same thing about ...
10:33 - BB: Are you sure they are not in occurring you?
10:35 - JS: They are occurring in me, because my body reinforces itself but I am...

well it's a multilevel focus and ... I'm on one level just preoccupied with just playing the instrument.

And on another level, I am preoccupied with what is my body doing, what is my presence.
10:50 - BB: Yes, but since now at that point, your instrument has become the gesture, the intention of you moving that gesture ... it is in one level
11:00 - JS: Well, in my case, I also have parametric control, so it's not a gesture, it's a parameter. I know if I do this ( moving his hand to the floor and rising it up) this is the volume control. So, I am not thinking of the gesture, I am thinking of the parameter...
11:16 - BB: Yes, but how you do it ...
11:18 - JS: Yes, that is the expressive aspect of it...
11:20 - BB: Yeah, for me that's intention ...
11:23 - JS: Yes, Intention, expression, affect, I think that's the chain.
11:26 - BB: Yes, so then in that sense, that's why you are aware of that, in the way you are changing a parameter ...
11:32 - JS: But it's the same if I play a long note
11:34 - BB: But it has more layers and at least you are aware of two layers
11:38 - JS: At least two layers, at least two; because you have different temporalities, a spatial, a tension [curve]...

so yes, intention - expression - affect, that's one chain, but then also, body control - temporal awareness - spatial awareness, that's another chain ...
12:04 - BB: Yes, that I put normally under the mechanics of movement that is actually things you need to train to be able to ... and they normally come through repetitions or in systems through training ... and then, of course, it is something you can differentiate at the moment when you apply intention ... when you do it from beginning, always with intention, it is the best training ... but you can also separate it, you know...
12:37 - JS: What happens when you use technology, because I think that relates our topic here, you get a broken mirror, as an instrument. In a sense that it breaks your relationship to material: it becomes un-intuitive or more difficult to grasp; and the broken mirror is super interesting because it exposes some of the basic mechanisms, basic functionalities of ... I mean if I am a singer and I come up and I start singing .... You don't see these mechanisms, because they are completely integrated ... cultural, evolutionary, really, really integrated.

If I come up and I start gesture to generate songs through technology, it starts going like ( makes a sound: crook) disjunction and that's where you start seeing this ...

So that's how I come to consider technology in terms of creative potential.
13:31 - BB: And for me I think it is very valuable when you start talking like ... If move this ... (?) or these practices, most of the time, the question is: what is the value of engaging technology, we don't need it? But the answer is what you are saying now: it is that the value, because you have this realization of these different processes we do, but sometimes you just are not even aware... and I think being critical and understanding actually what is the process... that you need to achieve, especially when you are in education being trained, I think the use of technology there is really important ...
14:12 - JS: And in a way technology has always been used, but now we have a tool, which is more fluid than analogue kinds of things, so that makes it really interesting.

But, of course, it has its own problems, it also has its own agency...

When I hear Anna saying that she does non-technological work with technology because that is the agency of technology, imposing itself on the process, and that is something I am really aware of and working on an art project now ... but yeah, it's a negotiation between: technology gives you what you want from it, and what is imposed on you by using that.

The same with the pianist hands or, really imposed upon by the shape (of the instrument)
15:04 - BB: yes, they are always constrained, but normally the constrains become creative
15:09 - JS: Yes, I mean, we need resistance to create, otherwise there is nothing.

15:14 - FB: Then, the way we are talking is about the way people perceive but I mean, maybe it's a broken mirror, but after a while, for you, it's a mirror again, you know how to use it ... and you could reach a point where you would be, ... I think, in the same state as when you play bass, but for the public it is different, the public has not seen the glove thing, so they are surprised ...

15:50 - JS: I know what you are saying, first of all, we are our first audience. Yesterday we were talking about the stage not being the whole thing. So, the big part of our process is what happens before the stage; so, there we are our own audience...

16:05 - FB: Yes, in the process. So, when you are comfortable enough to go on stage ...

16:11 - JS: But, not everybody [in the field of new musical instruments] would play the same instrument for thirty years, on the contrary. The problem of technology is the great thing but also the problem is ... the great thing but also the problem is that it is fluid.

So, it always slightly changes so you can never reach the same skill level (than on a traditional instrument), I mean, my gloves are 15 years old and I am really reluctant to change something about them, for that reason...
16:40 - FB: So you want to reach this state? [of instrumental expertise, as in a traditional instrument]
16:42 - JS: Well because I have the same experience my physical instrument, I now have a new bass, it is slightly different and it goes like ... ( moving his body to show the bass place)
16:51 - FB: So that you can think that for the public after all... maybe in ten years, when they will see somebody with gloves they won't be that surprised... this play will not be heard anymore ...
17:11 - JS: Well, I would think of Minority Report: it becomes a part of the pop culture. It's like, I did not choose it... yes, I chose to work with that tool but I did not choose to connect to that narrative...

The same with the mobile phone. In German there is a term called " cultural techniques " I don't know if you are familiar to it, but cultural techniques are the way things get disseminated, and how you get familiar to it. With object-use and technicity of objects; a 'Simondon' kind of agency of technology ...

17:46 - FB: So, there is again something here that is very interesting and I want to speak about, where sociologists talking about pop-art, which was a kind of reaction to pop culture. But then pop art has been so integrated in the culture ... like every teenager has been somehow become aware of (a Warhol)... then the pop art was a kind of a reaction to popular culture, it became in itself integrated popular culture; so, I want that ... I like that same thing, because technology you say is a kind of a break ... at some point it starts to be totally integrated and then so ... I wonder about the status of the type of art that is being performed now?

18:55 - JS: I think the one aspect is that, there are tech demo pieces ... that work about what is the technology and they get obsolete ... and that's a bit like ...

When you say, pop art got integrated, I think it is a sedimentation, continuous, and everything always gets sedimented, and, of course, you have capitalism, but in terms of music technology, I think, those works that actually have an artistic vision or a kind of narrative on top, or beyond, technology, that survives that can continue developing, and those [works] are only tied to the technology in terms of fascination effect, because they are really tied to the actual ... thing...
19:48 - BB: But my question is: are you trying to say something like ... let's say, the artist has a proposition, at a certain point he may not be understood, or may not be comprehended by the audience, because it's not on the same level of interest of expertise, but since we are using technology and that these technologies are more spread out and people would understand better; are you trying to discuss on that level, like that the affect would be different for the audience when they know more about this? Or... what were you meaning...?
20:30 - FB: Yes, I think so ...
20:35 - BB: Do you think that maybe in few years, if you keep using this technology, that actually it is also technology that people use for something else outside, people are going to bridge better to your performances?
20:47 - FB: Now I am kind of wondering if this is going to be something public; I mean either it's going to disappear, a little bit like pop art disappeared, because it does not make sense ...

21:05 - JS: Well, it has lost its significance ...

21:06 - FB: I mean, pop art is still recognised as an important reference ... In terms of art history; so, of these art pieces with technology might remain at some point, like a moment in time where experimenting with technology, was having, had a certain meaning ... of this broken mirror ... and then it would be regarded just as one moment, and then we will move on and this ... and so what ...

21:41 - JS: I think I agree with that in terms of...
21:45 - FB: It's a question
21:47 - JS: I have a feeling of what you say ... Think of internet art: CD ROMs, internet sites, etc. They [archivists] have a problem with that now because it is disappearing... I think there is like status shifts when we move on; I think there are shifts not because the technology shifts but because the context shifts, not because the technology shifts but because the context shift... That is what we are referring to ...

22:14 - AD: Considering performance with technology I would add that; as I told you I was a resident last year at Stereolux [cultural venue in Nantes] and they invited me to watch all the performances of different kinds of people using technology.

And I saw a performance of a beatboxer, Ezra, who performs with gloves. And he had staged something interesting, with a guy doing visuals in real time, it was like an " object theatre " in real-time performance, and the artist was all using very refined technological tools, but nobody explained anything about what they used ... and if you are not an expert, you do not understand anything of what is going on stage. I was with a friend, and he did not get anything about it.
23:12 - JS: Did he get the objet theatre?
23:15 - AD: No. I explained to him after a while. The setting was not clear at all. The mediation for these kind of art pieces is also very interesting for these kinds of pieces when you are talking about archive and communication ... what are you looking for when you have the intention of creating an art piece in the audience? and what kinds of tools we are giving the audience to understand what we do? Because there is some kind of technical ... if it's more about a creative process than about a performance in itself so how do you explain the process so that the audience understands what you do and get anything about it? How do you map the process so that the audience can follow?

And I think it is really obscure. My cousin is a musician composer trained at IRCAM, and I have to say I do not get anything about what he does, and when I see his concerts it is very obscured to me. Even if I do follow his work, come and visit him when he is working on his pieces, and if he shows me the way he uses technological tools.

I think there is a very strong gap between people who are using technology for art performances and the audience. My question is, are you doing art for yourself or do you intend to share? And if you share, what kind of language do you use?

24:40 - FB: So, it's not that different from any other contemporary art process.

24:44 - BB: No, it's the same.

24:47 - FB: When people go to a contemporary art exhibition, they think it's nothing because they have no clue how to understand it.

24:56 - JS: I think, what is interesting for us, is what role does the technology play, when you are also present, what is the balance between the physical artist being present and then the tools being used...

25:08 - AD: The difference to me is the black box of the algorithm, you were talking about it yesterday ... I mean, if you look at Jeff Koons art, you don't understand anything unless you have a thick enough background to understand the weight of his pieces is completely bizarre comparing it to the shape of the object.

If you are a physicist, you understand it immediately and you say, ha, wow, this is a beautiful art piece, and you can measure the amount of work to make it, and this is why you are interested in it, but ...

25:36 - FB: But you can understand Jeff Koons as a post-pop artist perspective...

25:43 - AD: But you also need some kind of background, which is obviously an art background, but when you are going into the field of digital arts and technology, you cannot get anything about coding and algorithm, it's a complete black box: This point makes a real break.

26:00 - FB: To this point I agree; I'm wondering what will happen in 10 years ...

26:05 - JS: It is already happening now

26:08 - FB: We can assume the point that algorithm, data and machines will become much more in the ...

26:18 - SdL: The data-ification, what is happening socially and culturally with data is moving in a different direction ... Don't you think it's interesting that this particular "work" has always lain at this intersection of engineering and sciences and electronics and art, music, sound, material? ... because it seems that this has been one of its defining features. It does not have a pop-art dimension to it in terms of art history, but it has this kind of interesting overlap, and an interesting history journey: cybernetics, lots of thinking and philosophizing, mathematics, engineering ... which are obscure topics to a larger public, and yet they have been topics of material fascination, so our interest in technics is phantastic and but it's kind of great, but it does not ... and it is presumable that it would sustain itself...

27:26 - JS: My issue with that, and where I'm trying reach, is that there is an inside and an outside face to these things. For an insider, you have this techno fascination and all these networked layers are really necessary and are what brings it forward ... and there is the outside layer which means: how it is perceived, what does it do, in terms of impact or changing the environment, and ... of course, we have these cultural techniques - you know if someone is up on stage and is doing this ( showing DJ gestures) and you get a lot of sounds then it is probably him doing this; that's kind of an iconic thing, it is becoming iconified.

But the level you are saying, this whole differentiated history, I don't think this actually becomes present; there is an inherent change ...

...

28:19 - AD: No but I think it is more than that, because we are changing culture ... We had really long talks about that last year: We were at the institute for Advanced Studies and Jean-Pierre Dupuy came from Stanford; we had long talks about engineering culture and I think we are entering in the world of engineers now...

And Bertha you were talking about dance education and about getting "skilled", and most of the Indian students and Chinese students are going to engineering schools; so they are just learning so many things about mathematics and physics and that's a new culture, it's a new pop culture.

Last year we had 6 masters working on our Rock Art project, and they would understand what is technic, but they do not know anything about the world, and they have no clue about what is happening out of their own boundaries.

When they buy a computer, they do not even understand it comes out of the earth. It is also a very important matter, doing art as artists: what kind of language you want to use to connect the people and how you connect the thing you do with your environment; I am not talking about your material environment, I am talking about the living environment...

29:55 - BB: I think that's in a way the responsibility of each artist, and this is what it is ... and how things are communicated and further understood by society is something else. What I find fascinating is actually ... you were saying that there is something that might not be there in those who are busy doing this, you said, as practitioners, you said something about being an expert, using technology that is now changing, you are getting new skills, in actually being flexible, so that is something that does not belong to your practice as a musician, because you do play the same instrument, so that is a huge shift in your own practice.

So that we can maybe in ten years say that the musicians that are engaging with technology have an extra skill, which is actually not in the technology in itself but being able to deal with the flexibility and it is changing in time ... of creating new parameters for being able to change this ... which is a complete difference to the relationship to the instrument, which it is something very, I find, amazing, something you can develop a complete different sphere within your own practice...

31:19 - AD: That's why Charles Tijus says (from the Lutin-Userlab a neuroscientist in Paris), develops what you say: If you look at the online teaching now: the skill is not about how to know, the skill is about how to learn; and it is called "externalization" ...

31:50 - JS: Yes, this is what Michel Serres develops that in Petite Poucette.

31:52 - AD: It is also interesting to understand that because of the swipe on your mobile phone, your fingers became so sensitive, as much as those of a violin player; they made brain tests to demonstrate the sensitivity augmented with the use of mobile phones; so, we are also changing our motor-neuronal skills, just using technology.

32:20 - JS: And Serres is talking about the thumb-skills and freeing brain-space.

32:30 - BB: I don't know if you want to predict future you imagine that there could be a tuning between the perception of society to this kind of work, maybe, maybe not, but let us say the skills and the difference of craft at this point is very big, but maybe in 30 years, will not be, and then the way we will perceive these works would be completely normal...

33:04 - JS: But unfortunately, what we see with students now is that they have no memory of the past.

33:08 - BB: Yes, and that is something that education needs to develop and change...

33:12 - JS: Yes, that is a societal problem with education, what is also the media environment, this kind of shortening of the time span and attention span ...

33:19 - BB: But we are becoming aware of that so probably something will happen...

33:23 - JS: Yes, in the general culture you have this problem, but then those that really push, they have this other attitude.

33:32 - JS: I would like to stop here, just so we can get the full afternoon.

_________________________________________________________________________________

Time and keyword Index:

0:00 - JS Affect, Expressivity, Emotion, Quality, Stimulus, pre-conscious

3:46 - AD patterns, Kinesphere, biomechanical data?

04:20 - JS dynamic sensing, kinematic sensing, movement profiles

05:15 - FB expert movement, skill

05:38 - JS effort curves, expert training, optimized learning, kinaesthetic resonance, body images & schemata

07:00 - AD disagrees

07:05 - JS culturally, individually shaped,

07:18 - AD kinaesthetic response with horses

07:21 - JS morphological commons

07:36 - scales of related morphologies, robots, kinesphere, instrumental spaces (double-bass, piano), dancers floor, gravity, instrumental affordances, dance &music as mirror twins, semantic units, gesture as a meaningful unit, gestures vs. instrumental actions

10:26 - BB potential semantic

10:27 - JS, in the viewer/audience/public

10:33 - BB not in you?

10:35 - JS where does potential semantics occur? multilevel focus, presence

10:50 - BB instrument, gesture, intention

11:00 - JS parametric control, not gesture

11:16 - BB the 'how'

11:18 - JS expressive aspect

11:20 - BB intention

11:23 - JS intention-expression-affect chain

11:26 - BB awareness

11:34 - BB two layers

11:38 - JS body control - temporal awareness - spatial awareness chain

12:04 - BB mechanics of movement, training, intention in training

12:37 - JS the 'broken mirror' instrumental relation with/through technology, intuition, disjunction

13:31 - BB value of engaging technology, critical understanding of process, education

14:12 - JS fluid tool, technological agency, opportunity and constraints of technology

15:04 - BB constraints as creative impulse

15:09 - JS resistance as force in creation

15:14 - FB assimilation of 'new' technologies

15:50 - JS fist audience, off-stage processes

16:11 - JS persistence in new technological instruments, reaching expertise

16:40 - FB reaching expertise

16:42 - JS physical instrument (double bass)

16:51 - FB assimilation of new instruments in time

17:11 - JS pop culture, 'cultural techniques', object use, agency of technology

17:46 - FB pop-art as example of reaction becoming assimilated into pop-culture, status of art now

18:51 - JS obsolescence, sedimentation of practices, narrative on top of/beyond technology

19:48 - BB artistic proposition, accessibility of technology, knowledgeability about technology

20:35 - BB: general technology use, as help for understanding performance

20:47 - FB disappearing significance of a practice

21:06 - FB art history, moment in time, moving on

21:47 - JS context shift

22:14 - AD beatbox, object theatre, no explanation, the public not understanding

23:15 - AD mediation, intention in creation, mapping the process, sharing, language use

24:40 - FB no difference to contemporary art

24:56 - JS role of technology in shared presence with artist

25:08 - AD black box of algorithms, prerequisite knowledge for understanding

25:43 - AD black box as a real break from art appreciation

26:08 - FB in the future, more powerful data & machines

26:18 - SdL data-ification, intersection & overlap of disciplines,

27:26 - JS inside/outside perspectives, fascination, impact, iconicity of gestures

28:19 - AD engineering culture, ignorance outside the own boundaries

29:55 - BB artist responsibility, new skills of adaptability

31:19 - AD neuroscience investigation, new skills through technology use, externalisation, adaptive, elastic brain

31:52 - AD changing motor-neural skills

32:30 - BB future tuning of perception of society

33:04 - JS shrinking memory span

33:08 - BB education

33:12 - JS societal problem with education, media environment

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
During the "Analysing Movement" Workshop in Kienberg, Switzerland on Monday 11/09/2017 Transcript by Anne Dubos - 03/2018 In conversation were: AD: Anne Dubos BB: Bertha Bermúdez FB: Frederic Bevilacqua JS: Jan Schacher SdL: Scott deLahunta (Media file: kienberg_broken_mirror_transcript.mp4) NB: See also time and keyword index at the bottom of this document __________________________________________________________________________ 00:00 - JS: I think it is an interesting question about the spatial sensing and the local sensing, and also the different types of the local sensing is interesting.

# data[].attributes.body
Being able to share one's perception of sound (one's way of listening) allows not only to affirm one's reality, but also to have access to a better definition of one's perception.

The hypothesis of designing a soundscape by the mean of performance questions the behavior of groups in the light of teleology: How to become authors of our relationships, rather than simple instruments?

Playing with motion sensors is in itself, an act of remediation ; in the sense of a remedy.

Therefore, the awakening of perception, through the capacity of soundesign (the manifestation of soundscapes), undoubtedly allows us to review a certain balance of power, imposed by our urbanities ; and somehow our blind colonial realities.

# data[].attributes.body
One needs to know that most of them have been travelling alone, crossing borders under trucks, or taking the risk of being drown on fragile boats.

Many of them have been kept in jails or house of tortures one finds in Egypt. Most of them have been abused, not to say raped.

The present girls have been extracted from prostitution networks.

Working on the sense of sound with that kind of public is helping us crossing the borders that separates us.

Augmented performance helps me reconnect with their lost identities, through a body narrative.