Anne-Marie Skriver Hansen will defend her PhD on August 27th here at Medialogy :: CPH
Tuesday, August 27th, 2013. 13.00-16.00 – A.C. Meyers Vænge 15, 2450 Kbh.SV. Room C1.-2.1.005
Title: Improvisation and co-expression in explorative digital music systems
Abstract: During the last two decades a new genre of “casual games,” defined by Juul 2010, has become popular. The game play in casual games is simple and provides short and intense play.
This dissertation has investigated a new genre of casual games that allows players to both collaborate and be creative in their expression. A series of music-oriented games and play environments was designed, implemented and investigated according to how two players, who are not musicians, coordinate musical expression amongst each other when given a number of creative restrictions in the sonic/musical material that they interact with.
The aim of the PhD study was to describe musical collaboration and co-expression in such a way that pattern recognition algorithms can be developed in future designs that mediate different forms of musical collaboration. A combination of qualitative and quantitative analysis of player collaboration showed that player duets applied their social skills: they adjusted to each other’s rhythm, tempo and musical motifs, and entered agreement about musical roles through gaze, demonstration gestures, postures and single-word utterances.
Imitation was used as a means to establish musical ground, while some duets entered other musical relationships like solo and accompaniment. The results from each study served to formulate new forms of level design in open-ended music oriented games, as well as design opportunities and “guidelines” for the future development of new digital and interlinked musicainstruments, play environments and games for novices.
Supervisor: Associate professor Hans Jørgen Andersen
Assessment Committee:
- Associate professor Lars Bo Larsen (chairman), Department of Electronic Systems, Aalborg University.
- Associate professor Stephanus A. G.Wensveen, Mads Clausen Institute, University of Southern Denmark, Sønderborg
- Lecturer Dr. Renee Timmers, Department of Music, The University of Sheffield