Embodied Interface Performance with Gestural Systems

Abstract

This chapter outlines a dynamic framework for creating meaningful interactions between the embodied voice and the disembodied voice through gestural systems. Based on the practices of contemporary vocal art, I will discuss the sensor instrument as prop, object and body extension and show how the sensor’s functions or affordances influence mapping strategies. I will show how the composed mapping of functional and communicative gestures together with a software’s logic defines a creative virtual instrument design framework. For this study, the embodied practice is presented as a dynamic system with seven co-players, a visual metaphor with seven limbs that create meaning in their interactions. To clarify this, I introduce each of these co-players separately. I present a way of understanding the creation of meaning in embodied human–computer interaction as a stream of attention with shifting perspectives. This mapping framework will be useful not only for musicians, composers and creative practitioners wishing to develop an understanding of the specifics of embodied human–computer interaction in vocal music performance but also for human–robotic researchers, voice-model and artificial machine-intelligence researchers seeking to develop a more systematic and targeted focus for exploring embodied interaction approaches in gestural systems.