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Unity in Diversity

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posted on 2024-12-10, 23:26 authored by Andrew BrownAndrew Brown, Toby Gifford

Unity in Diversity is a duet for human and computer. It was performed at the Improvising Algorithms concert as part of the Musical Metacreation Weekend, 15-16 June 2013, Sydney Australia. Autonomous musical agents ideally display independent creative capacity, behaviour and intent. Often, however, performances with such agents are in an ensemble setting. What then of ensemble skills? As Goethe famously commented, musical ensembles are characterised by the interplay of individual partners integrated into a cohesive whole. Beyond displaying autonomy, musical agents should ideally seek to create unity in diversity. The Queensland Conservatorium music technology research group have created an autonomous musical agent, CIM, which performs in ensemble with humans. This duet performance with CIM combines ‘conversational’ interaction with ‘inter-part elision’ to simultaneously create both a sense of independent musical agency and cohesive ensemble unity.


Funding

ARC Discovery

History

ERA Category

  • Performance of Creative Work - Music

Funding type

  • Public funds

Eligible major research output?

  • Yes

Research Statement

Research Background Unity in Diversity is a duet between a human performer and a computer, where the human plays a keyboard synthesizer and the computer software listens, analyses, and responds in real-time. This performance, utilising the Controlling Interactive Music (CIM) system, co-developed by the researcher, combines "conversational" interaction with "inter-part elision," creating a dynamic interplay between independent musical agency and cohesive ensemble unity. The duet explores how the human and computer components can interact musically while maintaining a sense of individual creativity and a unified musical outcome. Research Contribution This performance is part of an integrated practice-led research process, with the theory, software development, composition, and performance all carried out by the same research team. It investigates how autonomous musical agents can exhibit independent creative capacity, behaviour, and intent, contributing to a unified yet diverse musical experience. The work also serves as a demonstration and evaluation of the CIM software, which implements a novel interactive musical duet model based on the analysis of human duet interactions. Research Significance Unity in Diversity was selected for presentation in the "Improvising Algorithms" concert at the Musical Metacreation Weekend in Sydney, Australia in 2013. The concert, curated internationally, showcased this work alongside contributions from leading artists in the field of human-computer interactive music. Additionally, two academic papers discussing the evaluations of the CIM system from both performer and audience perspectives were published at Creativity & Cognition 2013 and the International Conference on Computational Creativity 2013.

Publisher

Musical Metacreation

Place of publication

Sydney, Australia

Confidential / Culturally sensitive

  • No

Copyright notes

© 2013 Andrew Brown and Toby Gifford.

References

Brown, Andrew R., Toby Gifford, and Bradley Voltz. 2013. “Controlling Interactive Music Performance (CIM).” In Proceedings of the Fourth International Conference on Computational Creativity, edited by Mary Lou Maher, Tony Veale, Rob Saunders, and Oliver Bown, 221. Sydney: The Association for Computational Creativity. Brown, Andrew R., and Toby Gifford. 2013. “Prediction and Proactivity in Real-Time Interactive Music Systems.” In Musical Metacreation: Papers from the 2013 AIIDE Workshop, 35–39. Boston, USA: AAAI.

Language

English

Duration of performance

7:39

Performance size

  • Solo

Number of work performers

1

Estimated size of audience

50

Authors of work performed

Andrew R. Brown

Was the work disseminated?

  • Yes

Form of dissemination

  • Public performance

Scope of dissemination

  • National

Venue

Old Darlington School, University of Sydney

Outlet title language

English

Reference number

103137

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