The development of an audio-visual language for digital music performance

This practice-based PhD consists of a portfolio of creative work and a supporting commentary. The portfolio illustrates the design decisions relating to my digital music performance system, and focuses upon the visibility and the fluidity of digital music performance. The goal of the design is to enhance the visibility without violating the audience’s auditory imagination unnecessarily, and to enhance the fluidity without relinquishing the unique fixed nature of digital music.

The performance system consists of an audio engine, control mapping engine and visual engine. The audio engine and the control mapping engine were programmed with Cycling ‘74 Max. They let the performer deconstruct and reconstruct pre-recorded audio files with her/his hands via MIDI controllers during performance. The visual engine was programmed with Derivative TouchDesigner. In various ways, it visualises and exaggerates the performer’s actions which cause sonic changes, and filters out the rest.

The works are presented as videos and the supporting commentary, deals with the contexts and thinking processes which determined the current performance system. By exploring theories of electronic music performance, audiovisual, visual music, acousmatic and medium specificity, I aim to explain the reasoning behind the performance system.