Information Technology Reference
In-Depth Information
In group performance we may see evidence of social “intimacy” (Reis and Shaver
2008
) in the extent of evident mutual engagement, i.e. the close—albeit staged—
interpersonal relations that occur between players. Intimacy in social psychology is
characterised as a reciprocal, “interactional process” that develops between individ-
uals; this is as true of music-making as any imaginable praxis. Intimacy develops
when revelatory self-disclosure from one subject in turn finds validation through
another's response. This is subsequently interpreted by the subject as evidence of an
emergent and binding understanding with the other participant. Intimacies are evi-
dence of psychological proximity, cohesiveness and trust (Prager
1995
); trust that
a partner can offer what is wanted (or if not, that they can offer what will provide
benefit rather than harm). The development of trust occurs in situations that require
interdependence, as when experience is shared, and activity and aims co-ordinated
('agentic' cohesiveness), or when there is an apparent need for a reciprocal exchange
of information, for mutual control and a state of
quid pro quo
in order to achieve
something desirable. All these are significant facets of participatory music perfor-
mance.
If intimacy is learned over time, through a series of transactions and negotia-
tions, it cannot be designed for in advance. Freely improvised music rests upon this
premise as well. To situate a computer in this setting could be a grossly simplistic
and anthropomorphising endeavour. But there are instances in which trust is fostered
without direct social contact. On-line or computer-mediated intimacy has been stud-
ied by Parks and Floyd (
1996
) showing how trust develops free of non-verbal cues
or immediate trust situations. Human-computer musical intimacy might occur in a
similarly shared but restricted environment; i.e. the music itself, even though the
respective understandings of that environment would differ entirely (Young
2010
).
6.5 Prototypes
Many systems exist that aim to satisfy the goal of achieving some or all of the fea-
tures listed in Sect.
6.2.2
(in general expressing “performative agency” as discussed
in Sect.
6.4.2
), validating their performative efficacy there and then in a performance
context. The fellow performers and audience must be convinced of the autonomy,
creativity, participation and leadership of the system through what it does on the
stage. For this reason, a successful behaviour for a Live Algorithm is mirroring,
performing in deference to the human improvising partner by deriving performance
information from it.
A clear example of a mirroring algorithm is François Pachet's
Continuator
sys-
tem (Pachet
2004
). The
Continuator
, from which the term mirroring is borrowed, is
explicitly designed to develop improvised responses to a solo performer in the style
of that performer, using a Markovian analysis of the performer's input (see also
Chap. 5 in this volume). The continuator works in a MIDI domain and performs
on a MIDI instrument such as a synthesised piano. Pachet describes this as a tool
to achieve creative flow, in which the performer has aspects of their playing style
