The research implements interactive music processes involving sound synthesis and symbolic treatments within a single environment. The algorithms are driven by classical instrumental performance through hybrid systems called hyperinstruments, in which the sensing of the performance gestures leads to open and goal-oriented generative music forms. The interactions are composed with MAX/Msp, designing contexts and relationships between real-time instrumental timbre analysis (sometimes with added inertial motion tracking) with a gesture-based idea of form shaping. Physical classical instruments are treated as interfaces, giving rise to the need to develop unconventional mapping strategies on account of the multi-dimensional and interconnecting quality of timbre. Performance and sound gestures are viewed as salient energies, phrasings and articulations carrying information about human intentions, in this way becoming able to change the musical behaviour of a composition inside a coded dramaturgy. The interactive networks are designed in order to integrate traditional music practices and “languages” with computational systems designed to be self-regulating, through the mediation of timbre space and performance gestural descriptions. Following its classic definition, technology aims to be mainly related not to mechanical practices but rather to rhetorical approaches: for this reason the software often foresees interactive scores, and must be performed in accordance with a set of external verbal (and video) explanations, whose technical detail should nevertheless not impair the most intuitive approach to music making.

Set in Motion is a composition in two movements for an ensemble of 10 instruments that interacts with a computer in real-time performance using Max/MSP software. The instrumental writing in the piece focuses on incorporating electronic composition techniques into acoustic composition. Techniques such as constructing envelopes, shading, and sound masses, which are common in electronic works are applied to the ensemble. Also, the intervals of a major and minor second are important in the instrumental writing. These intervals provided the basis for the material, which was then transformed algorithmically, both in individual lines and whole sections of music. In terms of the electronics, the first movement takes advantage of the interactive possibilities of the software. The electronic part is created through the computer extending, processing, and responding to the instruments. The techniques include extracting small grains of sound from the live instruments and repeating them, analyzing the pitch of the signal and amplifying overtones, and rearranging fragments in blocks of recorded sound. The second movement changes the focus of the electronic sound. The electronics are made of precomposed gestures that compliment the live instruments. These gestures are categorized and selected randomly according to specific characteristics. Filtering and other effects applied to the sounds are chosen randomly as well.

The research involves the creation of an interactive installation showcasing the dynamic nature of human visual observation of a still photograph. Using an eye tracker as an input device, the data collected is used to create a photographic collage in stereoscopic 3D. The installation is artistically inspired by selected photographic works of artists David Hockney, Maurizio Galimberti, Joyce Neimanas and Cubist painters especially Picasso. One of the key factors in their work that is adapted in this research, is the representation of the way eyes search points of interest demonstrated in what they painted/photographed. The installation will demonstrate an expressive representation of the viewers' experience of looking at a photograph. This will be achieved by applying certain manipulations of the photograph based on the input obtained from the viewer using an eye tracker. The eye tracker collects information about the location and number of instances of where the viewer is when observing a photograph. This is fed into software that processes the data and determines the location and the size of the area of the photograph and amount of the manipulation to be applied to that area. These two constitute the artistic rules that are used to create the end product the photo collage. The individual pieces of the collage will be arranged in a virtual 3D model by the artist and will be projected in stereoscopic 3D. The development of this installation progressed through multiple case studies and optimization based on ease of use, cost and availability of resources. This process is intended to be a framework for artists working in interactive visual media.

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Normal Mode is a composition for chamber ensemble and electronics that makes reference to the microtonality employed in Turkish music. In this composition I have made an attempt to expand the timbral palette of standard Western instruments by the use of electronic sounds, which were constructed through digital sound synthesis. The microtonal frequencies, which were used in this synthesis process, were derived from the Turkish tonal system. The ensemble material, on the other hand, was conceived within a Western-influenced serial pitch organization. These two distinct influences invite a dynamic discourse between the ensemble and the electronics. As a new instrument, which was developed specifically for this composition, the electronics initially attracts more attention. Over time a new equilibrium is established and the electronics part is integrated in the ensemble. The electronics part of Normal Mode was created in the object-oriented programming environment Max/MSP. It is realized in a performance of the composition with the same software. Five of the chapters of this thesis discuss the compositional process of the electronic part and the system of organization that guided this process. These chapters describe how this system was incorporated in the programming of Max/MSP patchers which generated the composition's sound library and perform the electronics part in real time. They also describe the relationships between the ensemble and the electronics. The sixth chapter presents the composition Normal Mode. The Max/MSP patchers that perform the electronics part are included in the supplement of this thesis.

This dissertation presents a notional model, as a taxonomic system, to describe dramaturgical elements of sound design in musicals. Developed in tandem with a prototype virtual environment interface - termed ‘The MaxStage’ - and authored in the Max/MSP software, the thesis uses Rebecca - the musical as a case study to test the efficacy of the model. Rebecca - the musical is in the form of a Broadway-style musical. Consisting of two Acts, the work is an adaptation of Daphne du Maurier’s novel of the same name. Whereas the technical art and practice of sound design for large-scale Musicals is increasingly well documented, the art form of sound design as a dramaturgical element in its own right, has received less attention. Analyses of the rôle of Sound-Designers in the theatre have tended to perpetuate the concept that sound design is commensurate with sound reinforcement. This tendency, however, delimits the creative potential of sound design to inform and elucidate the drama, as an extension of the musical score. A potentially more fluid interrelationship between music and sound design is postulated, as observed in the work of Sound-Designers for interactive computer games. As an electronic form of non-linear theatre, it is argued that new methodologies in adaptive-audio techniques, increasingly evident in computer gaming design, are relevant in defining an invigorated dramaturgy for sound design within the stage theatrical context.

This dissertation for the Doctor of Musical Arts degree in Composition and Theory consists of a seventeen-minute work for two clarinetists and electronic media. A Negative of Knowledge is based on a secular song by the 15th-century Burgundian composer, Gilles Binchois. His song, titled Triste Plaisir, is at moments heavily abstracted but can be heard throughout the work in the pre-recorded, countertenor voice of Wee Kiat Chia. The piece was premiered by David Angelo and Shannon Leigh at Boston University’s Marsh Chapel on April 30, 2018.

Fractures for Clarinet and Computer is a piece for live interactive performance using custom software designed in Max/MSP. the work explores musical borrowing and transformation of music from works such as Tchaikovsky’s Fifth Symphony, Gershwin’s Rhapsody in Blue, and several fragments from synthesizer recordings of the late 1960’s and early 1970’s. the dissertation focuses on both the musical aesthetics that informed the creation of the work and the software programming that enables live sampling and harmonization systems as well as flexible control of global parameters.

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