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Intonaspacio: A Digital Musical Instrument for Exploring Site-Specificities in Sound

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Sound, Music, and Motion (CMMR 2013)

Part of the book series: Lecture Notes in Computer Science ((LNISA,volume 8905))

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Abstract

The integration of space as a parameter in the composition of an art work as been relegated to a secondary role. Site-specific art is a branch of the visual arts whose main goal is to fuse space in the art work, i.e., the piece belongs to the space where it is placed and its meaning is lost once it is removed. There’s an idea of bi-directionality beneath the conception of the work, where space defines the perception of the piece and the piece interferes in the perception of space.

In music and especially in sound art, there are some examples of site-specific works, but they are sparse and mainly centered on the idea of installation. Site-specificity in sound is an open and not yet fully explored field. Our research purposes a new digital musical instrument (DMI) Intonaspacio, which allows the access to the sound of the room, and the integration of it in the music in real time. Intonaspacio provides the performer with tools to create site-specific sound, i.e., to integrate space as part of the creative work.

In this paper we present Intonaspacio, focusing attention on the design of the physical interface. Up until now we have designed two versions of Intonaspacio. From the first version to the second one, we have modified the material of the frame, which led us to reconsider some of our previous decisions on the choice of sensors and their placement. We also designed different mappings that present several approaches to the site-specific question.

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Notes

  1. 1.

    “Pitch and/or rhythmns”. Translated by the author.

  2. 2.

    By present in the room we mean the sound ambiance of the room as well as the resonant frequencies of the room as defined by Labelle [19].

  3. 3.

    By abstractions Maloch refers to the transformation of the extracted features in meaningful actions. For example if the signal of an accelerometer presents high frequencies and high amplitude, one can associate it to jerky movements. By creating these abstractions it is easier to others than the designer to create mappings with the DMI.

  4. 4.

    In Max/MSP the amplitude of sound must be between 0. and 1., else it will be distorted, hence signals that control this variable must be confined to this range.

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Acknowledgments

This research was funded by FCT (Foundation for Science and Technology, Portugal). The authors would like to thank Benjamin Bacon for his precious help, the composers Clayton Mamedes and José Alberto Gomes, and all those who in any way have participated in this project (Avrum, Carolina, Joe, André, André, João, Vasco, Mário).

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. CITAR - School of Arts, UCP, Rua Diogo Botelho, n. 1327, 4169-005, Porto, Portugal

    Mailis G. Rodrigues & Paulo F. Lopes

  2. IDMIL - CIRMMT, McGill University, 527 Sherbrooke st. West, Montreal, QC, H3A 1E3, Canada

    Mailis G. Rodrigues & Marcelo M. Wanderley

Authors
  1. Mailis G. Rodrigues
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  2. Marcelo M. Wanderley
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  3. Paulo F. Lopes
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Correspondence to Mailis G. Rodrigues .

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Editors and Affiliations

  1. CNRS - LMA, Marseille, France

    Mitsuko Aramaki

  2. Toulon-Var University and CNRS - LMA, Marseille, France

    Olivier Derrien

  3. CNRS - LMA, Marseille, France

    Richard Kronland-Martinet

  4. CNRS - LMA, Marseille, France

    Sølvi Ystad

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Rodrigues, M.G., Wanderley, M.M., Lopes, P.F. (2014). Intonaspacio: A Digital Musical Instrument for Exploring Site-Specificities in Sound. In: Aramaki, M., Derrien, O., Kronland-Martinet, R., Ystad, S. (eds) Sound, Music, and Motion. CMMR 2013. Lecture Notes in Computer Science(), vol 8905. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-12976-1_24

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-12976-1_24

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