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Multimedia and Live Performance Ian Willcock Submitted in partial fulfilment of the requirements for the award of PhD Institute of Creative Technologies De Montfort University December 2011 Volume One of Two. Abstract The use of interactive multimedia within live performance is now well established and a significant body of exciting and sophisticated work has been produced. However, almost all work in the field seems to start by creating at least some of the software and hardware systems that will provide the infrastructure for the project, an approachwhich might involve significant duplication of effort. The research described in this thesis sets out to discover if there are common features in the practice of artists from a range of performance backgrounds and, if so, whether the features of a system which might support these common aspects could be established. Based on evidence from a set of interviews, it is shown that there are indeed common factors in work in this field, especially the intensive linking of elements in performances and the use of triggering or cuing. A statement of requirements for a generic system to support work in digital performance is then established based on interview analysis and personal creative work.Ageneral model of live performance, based on set theory, is described which provides a rationale for the integration of digital technologywithin live performance.A computational model outlining the formal requirements of a general system for use in live performance is then presented. The thesis then describes the creation of a domain specific language specifically for controlling live performance and the development of a prototype reference implementation of a generic system, the Live Interactive Multimedia Ian Willcock – Multimedia and Live Performance Page i Performance Toolkit (LIMPT). The system is then evaluated from a number of standpoints including a set of criteria established earlier in the study. It is concluded that, while there are many resources currently used by artists working in digital performance (a comprehensive survey of current resources is presented), none offer the combination of functionality, usability and scalability offered by the prototype LIMPT system. The thesis concludes with a discussion of possible future work and the potential for increased creative activity in multimedia and live performance. Ian Willcock – Multimedia and Live Performance Page ii Declaration This thesis presented here isoriginal and solely my own work. The activity it describes was carried out between December 2004 and November 2011. It is submitted for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy at De Montfort University. Ian Willcock – Multimedia and Live Performance Page iii Acknowledgements I would firstly like to thank Jane Turner, Nick Rothwell and Daniel Biro fortheir creative inspiration and companionship throughout the eMerge project which began so many things. Next, I would like to thank Professor Andrew Hugill and Professor Hussein Zedan for their professionalism and for their many valuable, creative contributions and hours of generous support with this project. I‘m very grateful to Lucy Moffat, Paul Obermayer and Sally Parkinson for their help at those crucial points just when it was needed. I would like to thank my interview subjects, all of whom responded to my requests for their time and thoughts with great generosity and honesty. At De Montfort University, I would like to thank my Masters students for their enthusiasm and patience and my friends and colleagues there for their encouragement, advice and support. Similarly, my Westminster Kingsway College, and latterly, University of Hertfordshire, colleagues have been highly supportive. Lastly, I want to say how grateful I am to Molly and Dora, who have put up with a dad who has been less available and active than he would have liked. Ian Willcock – Multimedia and Live Performance Page iv Publications Willcock, I. (2005) Pinning Down the Artists: Developing a Methodology for Examining and Developing Creative Practice. In Proceedings of the 2006 DMU Humanities Graduate Conference [available online] http://www.tech.dmu.ac.uk/STRL/research/publications/pubs/2006/2006- 17.pdf Willcock, I. (2006) Composing without Composers: Creation, control and individuality in computer-based algorithmic composition. In Electronics in New Music, C.-S. Mahnkopf, F. Cox, and W.Schurig, (Eds.) (2006) Hofheim: WolkeVerlag. Willcock, I. (2010) Words Of Power: eMerge, A Language for the Dynamic Control of Live Performance. In International Journal of Humanities and Arts Computing 4.1–2 (2010): pp67–80 Edinburgh University Press Ian Willcock – Multimedia and Live Performance Page v Table of contents Volume One Abstract i Declaration iii Acknowledgements iv Publications v 1 Introduction 1 1.1 Context 3 1.2 Rationale 7 1.3 Contribution to Knowledge 12 1.3.1 Research Outcomes 13 1.4 Measuring Success 15 1.4.1 Research Goals 15 1.4.2 Evaluation of Prototype 17 1.5 Thesis Structure 18 2 State of the Art 23 2.1 Review of Scholarly Activity 25 2.1.1 Multimedia: Definitions and Context 26 2.1.2 Multimedia and Live Performance 31 2.1.3 Modelling Performance 37 2.1.4 Performance Practice 44 2.2 Applications Used in Live Performance 48 2.2.1 Criteria for Evaluation 49 2.2.2 Software Tools Used in Live Performance 53 2.2.3 Max and Isadora 59 2.3 Generic Application Development 63 2.4 Summary of Practitioner Survey 69 2.5 Chapter Summary 71 3 Methodology 72 3.1 Project Overview 73 3.2 Practitioner Survey 75 3.2.1 Survey Design and Epistemology 76 3.2.2 Survey Framework 79 3.2.3 Analysis 83 3.2.4 Ethics 84 Ian Willcock – Multimedia and Live Performance Page vi 3.3 Software Development 87 3.3.1 Development Methodology 87 3.3.2 Tools 90 3.3.3 Functional Testing 92 3.3.4 User Experience 94 3.4 Creative Activity 95 3.5 Evaluative Strategies 96 3.6 Chapter Summary 97 4 Requirements 98 4.1 Analysis of Survey Results 99 4.1.1 Generic Features of Practice 115 4.1.2 Potential for a Generic System 116 4.2 Creative Activity 118 4.2.1 Previous Experience 118 4.2.2 The Curious Listener 129 4.2.3 Installations 132 4.3 Statement of Requirement 139 4.3.1 Data 140 4.3.2 Usability 142 4.3.3 Technical Requirements 145 4.3.4 Functional Requirements 147 4.4 Chapter Summary 149 5 Computational Model 150 5.1 Modelling Live Performance 151 5.1.1 A Generic Model of Live Performance 152 5.1.2 Integrating a Generic System 159 5.2 Computational Model 162 5.2.1 Central Controller 165 5.2.2 Responding to Events 166 5.2.3 Generating Output 171 5.3 Chapter Summary 173 6 Realisation 174 6.1 Language Development 175 6.2 Prototype System 184 6.2.1 XML Message Format 185 6.2.2 Central Controller 190 Ian Willcock – Multimedia and Live Performance Page vii 6.2.3 Client 199 6.3 Chapter Summary 215 7 Evaluation of Prototype 216 7.1 Use in Workshop 217 7.2 Evaluation Against Requirements 221 7.2.1 Data 222 7.2.2 Usability 227 7.2.3 Technical Requirements 232 7.2.4 Functional Requirements 236 7.2.5 Requirements Evaluation Summary 239 7.3 Comparative Study 241 7.4 Chapter Summary 246 8 Conclusions 248 8.1 Evaluation of Research Activity 249 8.2 Contributions to Knowledge 253 8.3 Suggestions for Future Work 256 8.4 Dissemination of Results 259 8.5 Chapter Summary, Concluding Remarks 261 Volume Two Bibliography 263 Appendices 1 – Practitioner Survey Materials 282 2 – Survey Subjects – Biographical Notes 292 3 – eMerge Performance Scripting Guide 298 4 – LIMPT System software 323 5 – LIMPT Client AS Library documentation 324 6 – LIMPT Workshop guide 333 7 – Introduction to LIMPT (online materials) 345 8 – DRHA10 Workshop Participant Survey 354 Ian Willcock – Multimedia and Live Performance Page viii 1 Introduction ―One of the things that impressed me about this world is that there are an awful lot of people doing fantastic work, but an awful lot of them are doing it on their own and a lot of the time they‘re reinventing the wheel.‖ Martyn Ware The incorporation of interactive digital technology within live performance has become a feature of a significant and extensive body of creative activity. It is often accepted without further comment that this activity, like most creative activity, is highly heterogeneous in nature; it consists of a wide range of differing individual and organisational practices whose difference is an important, even necessary, part of their creative identity. Indeed, when examining creative practice, including that in digital performance, a commonly used academic approach is to identify those features and approaches which make a given work or a particular artist‘s oeuvre unique. This study, however, attempts to turn this approach on its head; instead of asking what is unique, it seeks to discover what, if anything, is common. Are there aspects of creative practice and the needs of creative practitioners across a wide range of work with interactive multimedia in live performance that are similar and, if so, what are they? It seeks to test the hypothesis that there might be features of work in digital performance which could be legitimately called generic and that, if these are identified, it may be possible to develop a system which could support a wide range of work in this area through facilitating these generic features, enabling artists to concentrate on those aspects of their work which are unique to themselves; their own individual creative visions. Ian Willcock – Multimedia and Live Performance Chapter 1: Introduction – Page 1 This first chapter sets out in detail the context and rationale for the study, the starting points and impetus for both the investigation into practices within multimedia and live performance and the adoption of a generic approach.