This research derives from a survey of primary and secondary literature and my practice as a professional artist using electronic information delivery systems. The research has informed the creation of an interactive art work, authored so that emergent meaning can be examined and explored within a specific generative virtual environment by a variety of participants. It addresses a series of questions concerning relationships between the artist, the art work and the viewer/user. The mutable nature of this computer-based space raises many questions concerning meaning production, i.e., how might such a techno-poetic mechanism relate to past practices in the arts, and in particular how might its use affect our understanding of theories of meaning? If the outcome of this part of the research suggests a radical transformation in meaning production as dynamically encountered through interactivity with a generative work of art, then how might the construction of this device inform a new field of practice? The scope of the topic and the secondary questions that flow from the initial speculation focus on the inter-conveyance of text (both spoken and written), image (both still and time-based) and music, as encountered by participants through interactive engagement within an authored and inter-authored virtual environment. The method has been to extend the realm of a series of theoretical positions relative to these areas as they appear in the mainstream literatures on art and interactivity, meaning and understanding. A virtual interactive art work has been developed in parallel to the literature survey and exhibited in Europe and Japan. The conclusions have been drawn by the author on the basis of a series of theoretical positions that examine the operative nature of an art work which is intended to generate emergent meaning. Future research is also discussed that seeks to extend our understanding and use of generative virtual environments.

Through three case studies this research report will explore the design and multimodal attributes of interactive installations that feature characteristics comparable to those of musical instruments. It will briefly outline and define data sonification and the five sonification techniques: Audification, Auditory Icons, Earcons, Parameter-mapping sonification and Model-based sonification. Model-based data sonification will be more closely explored, as interactivity and the incorporation of multiple modes are key elements within these types of sonifications. Pre-existing knowledge of musical instruments, their multi-modal attributes and functionality will be analyzed in relation to the case studies. The design analysis will focus on the interaction and interface design while incorporating the three modes, namely: visual guidance, real-time physical/gestural interaction, and instantaneous acoustic feedback. To conclude, this research report will demonstrate, through the case studies, that the function and design of musical instruments can be suggestive in realizing a potential way forward for digital artists and their multi-modal interactive installations.

Encouraging audience engagement is a challenge that confronts all interactive artists. If an audience member does not interact or does so in a cursory manner, then it is unlikely that the artistic aims of an interactive artwork will be met. The research project under discussion here approached this challenge by focusing on play as a way to encourage both audience engagement and exploration. Using practice-based research methods the project aimed to develop design strategies for stimulating a play experience within an interactive art context. The research process began with the creation of two interactive artworks and the development of a framework of thirteen characteristics of a play experience. These characteristics are: creation, exploration, discovery, difficulty, competition, danger, captivation, sensation, sympathy, simulation, fantasy, camaraderie and subversion. This play framework was then used during the creation processes of a third and fourth interactive artwork. Two subsequent evaluative case studies assessed the playful characters of these four artworks within an exhibition context. They also explored the usefulness of the play framework as a tool for both evaluation and design. The findings from these case studies suggested that the play framework was indeed a useful tool for design. They also suggested three additional design strategies for evoking play experiences within an interactive art context. First, to work with patterns and ambiguity to create a rhythm between rule-based play and improvisational play; second, to use the relationship between action and representation to connect with the emotional and sensual memories of an audience; and finally, to use robustness and responsiveness to give an artwork a vital and playful character and make it an equal participant in the play experience. The findings from the case studies also led to a greater understanding of techniques for installing playful interactive art. Exhibition signage was found to be important for creating an environment conducive to play and for shaping and directing a play experience. The studies also revealed audience play preferences for either puzzle solving or sense-making. An awareness of these preferences, it is suggested, could help exhibition designers to create an environment that will maintain the boundary of play. Finally, the findings from the case studies led to a greater understanding of techniques for evaluating playful interactive art. The play framework was found to be useful during evaluation for collecting detailed data about play experiences and for developing a common language between artist and audience. The use of social pairs as participants was found to help reduce anxiety and encourage play. The sobering effect of evaluation anxiety was also reduced by using peers as participants and by giving participants some training in the practice of doing evaluations. Finally, in order to maintain the play spirit it was suggested that the experience of doing an evaluation needs to be designed to be playful itself. These findings will be valuable for any artists and curators of interactive artworks that aim to evoke a play experience. They will also be of use to those within the general interaction design community, particularly designers focused on the creation, evaluation and exhibition of playful interactive systems.

Encouraging audience engagement is a challenge that confronts all interactive artists. If an audience member does not interact or does so in a cursory manner, then it is unlikely that the artistic aims of an interactive artwork will be met. The research project under discussion here approached this challenge by focusing on play as a way to encourage both audience engagement and exploration. Using practice-based research methods the project aimed to develop design strategies for stimulating a play experience within an interactive art context. The research process began with the creation of two interactive artworks and the development of a framework of thirteen characteristics of a play experience. These characteristics are: creation, exploration, discovery, difficulty, competition, danger, captivation, sensation, sympathy, simulation, fantasy, camaraderie and subversion. This play framework was then used during the creation processes of a third and fourth interactive artwork. Two subsequent evaluative case studies assessed the playful characters of these four artworks within an exhibition context. They also explored the usefulness of the play framework as a tool for both evaluation and design. The findings from these case studies suggested that the play framework was indeed a useful tool for design. They also suggested three additional design strategies for evoking play experiences within an interactive art context. First, to work with patterns and ambiguity to create a rhythm between rule-based play and improvisational play; second, to use the relationship between action and representation to connect with the emotional and sensual memories of an audience; and finally, to use robustness and responsiveness to give an artwork a vital and playful character and make it an equal participant in the play experience. The findings from the case studies also led to a greater understanding of techniques for installing playful interactive art. Exhibition signage was found to be important for creating an environment conducive to play and for shaping and directing a play experience. The studies also revealed audience play preferences for either puzzle solving or sense-making. An awareness of these preferences, it is suggested, could help exhibition designers to create an environment that will maintain the boundary of play. Finally, the findings from the case studies led to a greater understanding of techniques for evaluating playful interactive art. The play framework was found to be useful during evaluation for collecting detailed data about play experiences and for developing a common language between artist and audience. The use of social pairs as participants was found to help reduce anxiety and encourage play. The sobering effect of evaluation anxiety was also reduced by using peers as participants and by giving participants some training in the practice of doing evaluations. Finally, in order to maintain the play spirit it was suggested that the experience of doing an evaluation needs to be designed to be playful itself. These findings will be valuable for any artists and curators of interactive artworks that aim to evoke a play experience. They will also be of use to those within the general interaction design community, particularly designers focused on the creation, evaluation and exhibition of playful interactive systems.

Thesis (M.F.A.)--West Virginia University, 2002. / Title from document title page. Document formatted into pages; contains vi, 32 p. : ill. (some col.). Includes sound file in the mp3 audio format. Vita. Includes abstract. Includes bibliographical references (p. 29).

This thesis concerns a particular relationship between music practice, computer technology and the importance of rhythm as a vehicle of musical expression. The intention is to explore new technology to allow for computer-mediated improvisation of rhythmic forms that are derived from a consideration of West African drumming. In developing the thesis an analysis of personal practice is used to reveal the role of music technology and the musical aims implicit behind its adoption. The exploration of rhythm is seen as important both compositionally and as a means of mediating collaborative musical expression, and can be understood as the exploration of a particular form of complexity. In considering its importance, the idea of music as 'embodied action' is discussed and music is considered as a form of knowledge and communication equal to spoken language but different from it. These considerations form the background for a discussion of the musical potential that may lie within certain key developments in artificial life, situated robotics, and the computer modelling of perception. These technologies are looked at for their ability to recognize rhythmic complexity and to be able to suggest subtle adaptations of complex rhythmic forms. A proposal of an 'adaptive rhythm synthesis' is put forward. In its consideration, the rhythmic structures and improvisational styles found in West African music are seen to pose particular challenges for computer modelling and a range of possible solutions is explored. A consideration is also given to the nature of machine 'autonomy'. It is suggested that the progress may lie in some combination of these solutions. Finally, some thoughts about the relationship between art, music and science are discussed.

Since the preservation campaigns at Lee Tung Street, the Star Ferry Pier and the Queen's Pier that erupted in early to mid-2000s, Hong Kong participatory art has undertaken an increasingly proactive role in local spatial movements, which marks the organizational and strategical evolvements of this artistic category that differentiate it from earlier public and community art. While research initiatives after 2010 have identified regional geospatial politics as one major concern for local participatory art today, existing studies tend to take a contextual approach with main emphases on why art becomes involved in urban spatial struggles while rarely proceeding to investigate what strategies or modes of spatial practices have emerged from relevant projects and what implications they have on the material-social spaces of the city. This hesitation to forward an interpretive evaluation of the focused phenomenon stems from the absence of epistemological concreteness in participatory art theories and criticisms, which necessitates the introduction of new analytical tools in research on the subject. To answer the pending questions, this research employs Henry Lefebvre's theories of the social production of space to examine three representative projects selected from a preliminary survey of local participatory art programs/groups which involve spatial practices. In exploring the contents, strategies, and socio-spatial implications of these cases, it presents three models of spatially oriented participatory art. On this basis, a cross-case analysis is conducted to explore how participatory art in general offers counterforces against the neoliberalist social-material and aesthetic reprogramming of the city while laying the social foundation for the anticipated production of differential spaces. As more urban renewal and land resumption plans are anticipated to storm through the city in the coming decades, this research hopes to provide for practitioners, researchers, and local communities the discursive and conceptual tools to understand the role of art in preceding and future spatial contestations

This practice-led research concerns how participatory and dialogic art practice can come to terms with conditions after the Anthropocene (Crutzen & Stoermer 2000), the epoch when humans were recognized as 'an earth-changing force' (Lorimer 2015). These forms of art practice draw heavily on a social-constructivism that emphasizes human cultural endeavour above all else. But if we are to live in an epoch when humans can no longer presume to have mastery over nature (Plumwood 1993), then how can such a anthropocentric practice remain tenable? Indeed, it now seems impossible, inappropriate even, to make such a clear distinction between humans and others things. This is not to claim the end of the human. Rather, it is an invitation to think the 'more-than-human' (Whatmore 2002; 2006), and to ask, who else takes part with us in the social forms enacted through participatory and dialogic art practice after the Anthropocene? In doing so, this research turns towards aspects of new materialism (Dolphijn & van der Tuin 2015), and despite the associated risks - most obviously an accusation of "vulgarity" in insisting on the materiality of relations which subtend cultural and social ones - concludes that the benefits abound as the rest of the universe suddenly becomes our kin (Haraway 2015), our collaborators in research (Barad 2007), participants in art, and interlocutors in dialogue. This research is conducted through art (Frayling 1993), and is presented as a series of artworks and accompanying printed publications. Together, they attempt to admit the more-than-human into art practice - both as things and as a concept.

Nam June Paik (1932-2006) is well known as the father of video art. However, this study demonstrates the importance of his earlier interactive art (1961-63), which historically has been overshadowed by his video art. At the climax of his career in interactive art, Paik introduced his two-way art to the public at his first solo exhibition in Wuppertal, West Germany, in 1963. Interactive art itself has been a peripheral area in the history of art, and it has plural pioneers across disciplinary boundaries. Among the several origins of interactive art, Nam June Paik utilized music as a fundamental approach to design the emerging art. Concentrating on Paik’s music theory and practice in West Germany, my research traces the unexplored academic area of his articles about new music in the Korean newspaper Chayushinmun(1958-59). The perspective in his articles toward new music became a significant foundation for his progressive interactive art. Based on his music background, Paik knew how to incorporate musical instruments and devices into his interactive art. Finally, this study will articulate a concrete relationship between Paik’s musical experiences and his interactive art. It argues that his interactive pieces, based on his musical experiences, make him one of the most creative pioneers of interactive art.

<p>I am interested, broadly, in the relationship of aesthetics to politics. More specifically, I am interested in the importance of aesthetics to leftist political organizing, particularly in regard to music. This interest reflects my goals as a composer and as an activist, or, I should say, as a composer/activist: the project is the same&mdash;musical composition is a large piece of a larger puzzle. <italic>SuperConductors</italic> explores the (structural) relationships between musical objects, their means of production, and the corresponding social formations. I am especially concerned with how formal aspects of a musical composition (which, for me, include the means of performance/consumption) reflect social relations, but more importantly also forge them. So: is there a way for me to write music that challenges dominant/hegemonic social relationships? Is there a way for me to write a more democratic music?</p><p><italic>SuperConductors</italic> consists of three divisions. The introductory division discusses the theoretical background of the project and traces historical lineages of other music and art that have been influential to this project. The second division is comprised by a series of musical compositions devoted to exploring the political and aesthetic possibilities that arise from participatory music-making. The final division consists of an article examining the emergence of web-based interactive music, pieces sometimes dubbed &ldquo;sound toys&rdquo;, as well as a series of my own pieces in this genre.</p><p>As a result of my work on this project, I have developed a paradigm for the production of democratic musical works through the discerning implementation of dynamically configurable forms; these principles, designed to facilitate the composition of new works in this style, are codified in a section entitled, &ldquo;Guidelines for a new democratic music&rdquo;.</p> / Dissertation