intra-sonic // projects

COLLAB is an FWF-funded project, lead by Visda Goudarzi. Since October 2016 intra-sonic is part of the project and will participate in installations and performances exploring the domain of public and interactive sound art.

COLLAB - Project abstract:

Collaborative creativity is a common methodology to solve design challenges such as industrial design, architecture, and more recently software design. Still, the sound art community lacks vigorous case studies of the application of collaborative creativity in artistic research in sound art installations and performances. The sound of our surroundings influences us continuously and we need tools to incorporate the public in creation and evaluation of these sounds. Collaborative creativity is especially suited to the preliminary exploration of such sound space.

The COLLAB approach includes three crucial steps addressing all relevant obstacles that are met when introducing sound art creation in public: First, we will analyze how public and interactive sound arts work. We study how general public interacs with interactive sound installations and what are the more interesting aspects of interactivity and sound for them. Additionally we emphasize on how people listen to sound and electronic music. This will enable the interdisciplinary communication about the project results. Second, prototypes will repeatedly be evaluated by two stakeholder groups (volunteers from general public and aesthetically trained sound artists). Third, we will provide open source, easy-to-use platforms for the public to participate in democratization of sound art, not only during the installations and performances, but also as sound art developers in their free time.

The research will be carried out at the Institute of Electronic Music and Acoustics (IEM), which has extensive experience in interactive sound and computer music composition. COLLAB will lead to interactive creation of sound art for public by the public. Conventions shall be established not in the sense of ready-made composition tools, but regarding the process of developing community based sound art installations and compositions.

Project website: iem.kug.ac.at/collab

GOUDARZI, V. and GIOTI, A. M. (2016) "Engagement and interaction in participatory sound art". In: Proceedings of the 13th Sound and Music Computing Conference, Hamburg, Germany, pp. 179-184.

Abstract:

This paper explores a variety of existing interactive and participatory sound systems and the role of different actors in them. In human computer interaction (HCI), the focal point on studying interactive systems has been the usability and functionality of the systems. We are trying to shift the focus more towards creative aspects of interaction in both technology development and sound creation. In participatory sound art, the roles of technology creator, composer, performer, and spectator are not always distinct but may overlap. We examine some challenges in such systems, like the ownership of technical and aesthetic components and balancing engagement and interaction among different stakeholders (designer, composer, spectator, etc). Finally, we propose a discussion on participation, human-computer and human-human interaction within the process of creation and interaction with the system.

Read the paper here: Proceedings of the 13th Sound and Music Computing Conference