Examining the Spectator Experience (original) (raw)
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This thesis is about DMI (digital musical instrument) performance, its audiences, and their perception of error. The goal of this research is to improve current understanding of how audiences perceive DMI performance, where performers and their audiences often have no shared, external frame of reference with which to judge the musical output. Further complicating this audience-performer relationship are human-computer interaction (HCI) issues arising from the use of a com- puter as a musical instrument. In current DMI literature, there is little direct inquiry of audience perception on these issues. Error is an aspect of this kind of audience perception. Error, a condition reached by stepping out of bounds, appears at first to be a simple binary quantity, but the location and nature of those boundaries change with con- text. With deviation the locus of style and artistic progress, understanding how audiences perceive error has the potential to lend important insight to the cultural mechanics of DMI performance. In this thesis I describe the process of investigating audience perception and unpacking these issues through three studies. Each study examines the relative effects of various factors on audience perception — instrument familiarity and musical style, gesture size, and visible risk — using a novel methodology combining real-time data collected by mobile phone, and post- hoc data in the form of written surveys. The results have implications for DMI and HCI researchers as well as DMI performers and composers, and contribute insights on these confounding factors from the audience’s perspective as well as important insights on audience perception of error in this context. Further, through this thesis I contribute a practical method and tool that can be used to continue this audience-focused work in the future.
Spectator understanding of error in performance
Proceedings of the 27th …, 2009
The development of computer-based devices for music control has created a need to study how spectators understand new performance technologies and practices. As a part of a larger project examining how interactions with technology can be communicated to spectators, we present a model of a spectator's understanding of error by a performer. This model is broadly applicable throughout HCI, as interactions with technology are increasingly public and spectatorship is becoming more common.
A place to play - Experimentation and Interactions Between Technology and Performance.(2006)
The Potentials of Spaces : International Scenography and Performance for the 21st Century, 2006
This chapter explores issues associated with the use of technology in performance. Why is the use of technology seen by many as a threat to the liveness of the performance event? Does the use of technology necessarily distract the audience and detract from the art? Can there be a seamless integration within the performance event? What are the implications for designing for performance in and for, an increasingly technologically oriented world? Drawing on the work of key practitioners (including Robert Wilson, Josef Svoboda, and Robert Lepage), I aim to investigate the links between the use of technology and the creation of scenographic statements on stage. Whilst concentrating primarily on the convergence of digital and projection technologies, the article will advocate new ways of working if such technology is to be integrated successfully into performance work. An account of an exploratory project involving dance, digital media and projection is provided as part of an argument that attempts to counter suggestions that performance and technology, art and science are fundamentally incompatible.
Perceptions of Skill in Performances with Acoustic and Electronic Instruments
2011
We present observations from two separate studies of spectators' perceptions of musical performances, one involving two acoustic instruments, the other two electronic instruments. Both studies followed the same qualitative method, using structured interviews to ascertain and compare spectators' experiences. In this paper, we focus on outcomes pertaining to perceptions of the performers' skill, relating to concepts of embodiment and communities of practice.
Digital Musical Interactions: Performersystem relationships and their perception by spectators
Organised Sound, 2011
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.
Using Contemporary Technology in Live Performance: The Dilemma of the Performer
Journal of New Music Research, 2003
The use of computers in live performance has resulted in a situation in which cause-and-effect has effectively disappeared, for the first time since music began. Once we started to use computers in live performance -to interpret abstract gestures and generate sound as a result -the age-old relationship between gesture and result became so blurred as to be often imperceptible. In historical terms, this problem is extremely recent, involving only the last few decades of musical practice preceded by at least thirty thousand years of music-making by conventional (acoustic) means. The aim of this paper is to show how this affects contemporary performance and the relationship between the performer and the audience.
Design Implications For Technology-Mediated Audience Participation In Live Music
Proceedings of the SMC Conferences, 2017
Mobile and sensor-based technologies have created new interaction design possibilities for technology-mediated audience participation in live music performance. However, there is little if any work in the literature that systematically identifies and characterises design issues emerging from this novel class of multi-dimensional interactive performance systems. As an early contribution towards addressing this gap in knowledge, we present the analysis of a detailed survey of technology-mediated audience participation in live music, from the perspective of two key stakeholder groupsmusicians and audiences. Results from the survey of over two hundred spectators and musicians are presented, along with descriptive analysis and discussion. These results are used to identify emerging design issues, such as expressiveness, communication and appropriateness. Implications for interaction design are considered. While this study focuses on musicians and audiences, lessons are noted for diverse stakeholders, including composers, performers, interaction designers, media artists and engineers.
Skip the Pre-Concert Demo: How Technical Familiarity and Musical Style Affect Audience Response
This paper explores the roles of technical and musical familiarity in shaping audience response to digital musical instrument (DMI) performances. In an audience study conducted during an evening concert, we examined two primary questions. First, whether a deeper understanding of how a DMI works increases an audience's enjoyment and interest in the performance; and, second, given the same DMI and same performer, whether playing in a conventional (vernacular) versus an experimental musical style affects an audience's response. We held a concert in which two DMI creator-performers each played two pieces in differing styles. Before the concert, each half the 64-person audience was given a technical explanation of one of the instruments. Results showed that receiving an explanation increased the reported understanding of that instrument, but had no effect on either the reported level of interest or enjoyment. On the other hand, performances in experimental versus conventional style on the same instrument received widely divergent audience responses. We discuss implications of these findings for DMI design.
Audience Experience in Sound Performance
This paper presents observations from investigating audience experience of apractice-based research in live sound performance with electronics. In seekingto understand the communication flow and the engagement between performer andaudience in this particular performance context, we designed an experiment thatinvolved the following steps: (a) performing WOSAWIP at a new media festival,(b) conducting a qualitative research study with audience members and (c)analyzing
This paper presents a methodology for the study of audience perception of live performances, using a combined approach of post-hoc and real-time data. We conducted a study that queried audience enjoyment and their perception of error in digital musical instrument (DMI) performance. We collected quantitative and qualitative data from the participants via paper survey after each performance and at the end of the concert, and during the performances spectators were invited to indicate moments of enjoyment and incidences of error using a two-button mobile app interface. This produced 58 paired post-hoc and real-time data sets for analysis. We demonstrate that real-time indication of error does not translate to reported non-enjoyment and post-hoc and real-time data sets are not necessarily consistent for each participant. In conclusion we make the case for a combined approach to audience studies in live performance contexts.