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Bodily Awareness Through NIMEs: Deautomatising Music Making Processes

Carla Sophie Tapparo, and Victor Zappi

Proceedings of the International Conference on New Interfaces for Musical Expression

Abstract

The lived body, or soma, is the designation for the phenomenological experience of being a body, rather than simply a corporeal entity. Bodily knowledge, which evolves through bodily awareness, carries the lived body’s reflectivity. In this paper, such considerations are put in the context of previous work at NIME, specifically that revolving around with the vocal tract or the voice, due to its singular relation with embodiment. We understand that focusing on somaesthetics allows for novel ways of engaging with technology as well as highlighting biases that might go unnoticed otherwise. We present an inexpensive application of a respiration sensor that emerges from the aforementioned conceptualisations. Lastly, we reflect on how to better frame the role of bodily awareness in NIME.

Citation

Carla Sophie Tapparo, and Victor Zappi. 2022. Bodily Awareness Through NIMEs: Deautomatising Music Making Processes. Proceedings of the International Conference on New Interfaces for Musical Expression. DOI: 10.21428/92fbeb44.7e04cfc8 [PDF]

BibTeX Entry


@inproceedings{nime2022_55,
author = {Tapparo, Carla Sophie and Zappi, Victor},
title = {Bodily Awareness Through NIMEs:  Deautomatising Music Making Processes},
booktitle = {Proceedings of the International Conference on New Interfaces for Musical Expression},
editor = {Andrew McPherson and Emma Frid},
year = {2022},
month = {jun},
address = {Auckland, New Zealand},
issn = {2220-4806},
articleno = {55},
track = {Papers},
doi = {10.21428/92fbeb44.7e04cfc8},
url = {https://doi.org/10.21428%2F92fbeb44.7e04cfc8},
presentation-video = {https://youtu.be/GEndgifZmkI},
abstract = {The lived body, or soma, is the designation for the phenomenological experience of being a body, rather than simply a corporeal entity. Bodily knowledge, which evolves through bodily awareness, carries the lived body’s reflectivity. In this paper, such considerations are put in the context of previous work at NIME, specifically that revolving around with the vocal tract or the voice, due to its singular relation with embodiment. We understand that focusing on somaesthetics allows for novel ways of engaging with technology as well as highlighting biases that might go unnoticed otherwise. We present an inexpensive application of a respiration sensor that emerges from the aforementioned conceptualisations. Lastly, we reflect on how to better frame the role of bodily awareness in NIME.}
}