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List of contents
List of Figures
Acknowledgements
Introduction
Part 1: Invisible Instruments
1. Gestural Systems for Musical Performance
2. Design Approaches
Part 2: Performer Approaches
3. Laetitia Sonami
4. Atau Tanaka
5. Vocal and Breath-based Gestural Systems
6. Pamela Z
7. Julie Wilson-Bokowiec
8. Lauren Sarah Hayes
9. Bent Leather Band
10. Design Reflections
11. Mark Coniglio
12. Garth Paine
13. Intangible Spaces
Part 3: Synergy and Transformation
14. Expanding Agency
15. Reimagining Identity
References
Author Index
Subject Index
About the author
Mary Mainsbridge is a composer and performer of improvised live electronic music, exploring vocal augmentation and movement expression through gesture-controlled instruments. Her works span audio-visual compositions, interactive installations, and performances at festivals and galleries throughout Europe, the UK and Australia. She lectures in music at Macquarie University, Australia, specializing in the research areas of embodiment, gesture studies, performative inquiry and sonic interaction design.
Summary
Body as Instrument explores how musicians interact with movement-controlled performance systems, producing sounds imbued with their individual physical signature. Using motion tracking technology, performers can translate physical actions into sonic processes, creating or adapting novel gestural systems that transcend the structures and constraints of conventional musical instruments. Interviews with influential artists in the field, Laetitia Sonami, Atau Tanaka, Pamela Z, Julie Wilson-Bokowiec, Lauren Sarah Hayes, Mark Coniglio, Garth Paine and The Bent Leather Band expose the transformational impact of motion sensors on musicians’ body awareness and abilities. Coupled with reflection on author-composed works, the book analyses how the body as instrument metaphor informs relationships between performers, their bodies and self-designed instruments. It also examines the role of experiential design strategies in developing robust and nuanced gestural systems that mirror a performer’s movement habits, preferences and skills, inspiring new physical forms of musical communication and diverse musical repertoire.
Foreword
Presents a range of design approaches for developing motion-controlled digital musical instruments that reflect performer perspectives and felt experience.
Additional text
With Body as Instrument Mary Mainsbridge makes an important contribution to the somatic approach to HCI, discussing musical instrument design and dance performance. This is done not only through interviews and studies of many pioneers and innovators in the field, but also and most importantly through her own experiences and practice of using the body as a performative instrument in a spatial interaction paradigm. Highly relevant!
