Creating a White Noise Instrument for Collaborative Improvisation

Austin Oting Har, and Kurt Mikolajczyk

Proceedings of the International Conference on New Interfaces for Musical Expression

Abstract

This paper introduces shiki, a virtual instrument developed for performing Renga for White Noise, an interdisciplinary project that transmediates Japanese renga poetry principles into a framework for collaborative improvisation with human and AI agents. We discuss two areas: (1) our transmediation of renga’s structuring principles into shiki’s design (2) the technical aspects behind the AI agent’s performance with shiki. Through its interdisciplinary and intercultural entanglements with renga, transmediation as a method can illuminate new perspectives on the design and performance of NIMEs.

Citation

Austin Oting Har, and Kurt Mikolajczyk. 2025. Creating a White Noise Instrument for Collaborative Improvisation. Proceedings of the International Conference on New Interfaces for Musical Expression. DOI: 10.5281/zenodo.15698827 [PDF]

BibTeX Entry

@article{nime2025_25,
 abstract = {This paper introduces shiki, a virtual instrument developed for performing Renga for White Noise, an interdisciplinary project that transmediates Japanese renga poetry principles into a framework for collaborative improvisation with human and AI agents. We discuss two areas: (1) our transmediation of renga’s structuring principles into shiki’s design (2) the technical aspects behind the AI agent’s performance with shiki. Through its interdisciplinary and intercultural entanglements with renga, transmediation as a method can illuminate new perspectives on the design and performance of NIMEs.},
 address = {Canberra, Australia},
 articleno = {25},
 author = {Austin Oting Har and Kurt Mikolajczyk},
 booktitle = {Proceedings of the International Conference on New Interfaces for Musical Expression},
 doi = {10.5281/zenodo.15698827},
 editor = {Doga Cavdir and Florent Berthaut},
 issn = {2220-4806},
 month = {June},
 numpages = {4},
 pages = {171--174},
 presentation-video = {https://vimeo.com/1021218658},
 title = {Creating a White Noise Instrument for Collaborative Improvisation},
 track = {Paper},
 url = {http://nime.org/proceedings/2025/nime2025_25.pdf},
 year = {2025}
}