Associazione Informatica Musicale Italiana

XXII Colloquium of Musical Informatics, Udine, November 20-23, 2018

Machine Sounds, Sound Machines

The general theme of the 2018 edition is the relationship between sound and machine. Through their ever-growing development, machines are becoming protagonists in every process involving musical sound. Limited until few years ago to the traditional sound recording, synthesis, processing and reproduction stages, recently their role has tremendously expanded thanks to the possibility to collect, analyse and widely spread large amounts of data. The computer science community has not been surprised by this growth, indeed fuelled by the own activity of its researchers, and yet this community must act now not to lose the artistic and creative roadmap that so far has kept such machines soundness stable. The old approaches must face an artificial intelligence that acquires data pervasively and then, once such data have been processed through algorithms which are harder and harder to understand, prominently dictates the taste and the new frontiers of music.

XXII-CIM-Program-3.2

Tues 20/11 – Workshop : Make your own Sound Machine with MozziByte – Stephen Barrass

In this workshop you will learn to make a sound machine with the MozziByte, based on the Risset Rhythm illusion by Jean-Claude Risset. The sound machine will be made using the MozziByte software and hardware, running on a small, cheap, open source Arduino microcontroller. MozziByte allows designers, artists, musicians and students to rapidly prototype and create imaginative sonic products, interactive sonifications, sound art installations and boutique synthesisers by providing the core components needed in every project. The workshop includes an introduction to the Arduino, and sound synthesis using the Mozzi library.

Wed 21/11 – Keynote : Sonic Information Design – Stephen Barrass

The multi-disciplinarity in the Auditory Display community has been beneficial, but has also resulted in clashes between scientific and artistic research cultures. This talk proposes design research as a third and complementary approach that is particularly well aligned with the pragmatic and applied nature of the field. The proposal, called Sonic Information Design, is explicitly founded on the design research paradigm.

Keywords: Sonic Information Design, Auditory Display, Data Sonification, Human Centred Design, Design Research, Paradigm Shift, Epistemology.