Music Composition and Performance in Interactive Computer/Human Systems (original) (raw)

This paper explores a dialogue between art and technology in the fields of interactive art,interface design and interactive music. These fields create a frame in which I present mycreative project Ephemeral Gumboots, a hybrid media artwork/musical instrument that takes South African Gumboot dance and extends it as an interface into an electronic music-making system. The notion of interactivity, its history, development, social meaning and the technology that has enabled it become objects for interrogation. The concept of process, which is at the heart of interactive art and music, is also located philosophically and historically. Essential (Cagean) considerations surface too: whether music is an art form; and how composition relates to music. A socio- political milieu is constructed in which to locate the work: Ephemeral Gumboots is presented via description, analysis, and as poetry. The modified boots are explained from an electronic music/ instrument design point of view, and a dialectic is set up between the technical existence of the work and the philosophical questions it asks. These questions are(intuitively) presented in a metaphorical creative writing style as intimate fragments of the artist’s imagination. Meaning is touched upon, but left open-ended and ephemeral.Lastly, there is a practical attempt to put a technical description of the work into laymen’s terms, with the invitation to other composers and dancers to use the system for further creative exploration. Special attention is given to instrument design (which is an integral part of the process of composition in this context) and the organisation of material.