Body as Instrument

Abstract

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.

The Body Electric: A NIME designed through and with the somatic experience of singing

“…The creative appropriation of biosensors has resulted in the development of new musical interfaces which harness biosignals, spatial and gestural data to either sonify the body, control and trigger sound events, or to manipulate the sound of acoustic instruments. Some prominent artists working with these technologies such as Marco Donnarumma, Atau Tanaka, Pamela Z and Imogen Heap, have approached the design of their NIMEs and digital instruments for sonifying their bodies through harnessing electrical signals from muscles and/or the brain-in Donnarumma and Tanaka's work- [2] [3] [4] [5] [6] [7], or-as with Z and Heap-through sonifying gestural data [8] [9][10] [11] [12] [13] [14] [15] [16].…”

“…Within the NIME community a number of researchers have explored the potential of utilising biosensing tools for generating music [30] or for designing creative and artistic expressions with data produced by bodies, more broadly [31] [32] [33]. Regardless of the type of biosensor used to capture and transform physiological data into sound, there is a commonality in that each approach is centred around exploring how a musician's experiences can inform physical engagement during performance, and the body's creative potential as an expressive tool [34] [11]. Donnarumma's description of biophysical music is useful here, which he defines as the configuration of computing interfaces with musical systems [35].…”