PERFORMANCE TECHNOLOGY 2010 / TIMARA

There is a fuzzy line that separates instrumentality from interactivity.  I assert that an instrument is a tool created for musical performance (and used by a performer) that responds to the performer.  An instrument is interactive, but only to a select number of informed users.  In general, an instrument does not make musical decisions on its own, but requires the input of the performer in order to produce any sound or have any compositional direction.  Interactivity, on the other hand, is the audience’s ability to interact with the product of that instrument.  Even though a violin responds to bow pressure, fingerings, plucking, etc., it is not something that immediately comes to mind with “interactivity.”  If, however, someone listening to a violinist were able to control the timbre by adjusting the way they are moving their arms, that would be interactive.  The difference between instrumentality and interactivity is fundamentally an issue of purpose.  An instrument is a tool of performance, whereas interactivity is a tool of inclusion.  If the audience feels like it is taking a dynamic part in what they are experiencing (audiovisually or otherwise), then it feels much more important and is drawn into the piece much more strongly.

How a piece interacts with the audience is another matter of careful consideration.  While having direct, constant, and obvious correlations between stimuli and output of a piece can be highly entertaining for awhile, it really does not stimulate further curiosity or interest in the piece.  The best kind of interactivity is the kind that allows the user or audience to know that they are in fact a part of what is going on, though the audience does not know exactly how it is involved.  This way, the audience still feels a strong connection to their experience but has to wonder (i.e. interact cognitively) what stimulus produces what result.  Imagine a fusion between instrument and this kind of interactivity: the audience is the performer, but does not (and perhaps cannot) ever discover how to play the instrument—a piece that perhaps has some kind of predetermined development (electronics controlled by the passing of time) but has the more specific details completely left up to what happens with who is observing it (and hence interacting with it).  The method of the piece (either the code of the program generating all the output, or the hardware, or what have you) is set and predetermined, but the content of the piece is indeterminable—yet still fun and worthwhile due to its relationship to the performer-audience.

- Luke

A Heady Instrument