Soma Design for NIME

Juan P Martinez Avila, Vasiliki Tsaknaki, Pavel Karpashevich, Charles Windlin, Niklas Valenti, Kristina Höök, Andrew McPherson, and Steve Benford

Proceedings of the International Conference on New Interfaces for Musical Expression

Abstract:

Previous research on musical embodiment has reported that expert performers often regard their instruments as an extension of their body. Not every digital musical instrument seeks to create a close relationship between body and instrument, but even for the many that do, the design process often focuses heavily on technical and sonic factors, with relatively less attention to the bodily experience of the performer. In this paper we propose Somaesthetic design as an alternative to explore this space. The Soma method aims to attune the sensibilities of designers, as well as their experience of their body, and make use of these notions as a resource for creative design. We then report on a series of workshops exploring the relationship between the body and the guitar with a Soma design approach. The workshops resulted in a series of guitar-related artefacts and NIMEs that emerged from the somatic exploration of balance and tension during guitar performance. Lastly we present lessons learned from our research that could inform future Soma-based musical instrument design, and how NIME research may also inform Soma design.

Citation:

Juan P Martinez Avila, Vasiliki Tsaknaki, Pavel Karpashevich, Charles Windlin, Niklas Valenti, Kristina Höök, Andrew McPherson, and Steve Benford. 2020. Soma Design for NIME. Proceedings of the International Conference on New Interfaces for Musical Expression. DOI: 10.5281/zenodo.4813491

BibTeX Entry:

  @inproceedings{NIME20_93,
 abstract = {Previous research on musical embodiment has reported that expert performers often regard their instruments as an extension of their body. Not every digital musical instrument seeks to create a close relationship between body and instrument, but even for the many that do, the design process often focuses heavily on technical and sonic factors, with relatively less attention to the bodily experience of the performer. In this paper we propose Somaesthetic design as an alternative to explore this space. The Soma method aims to attune the sensibilities of designers, as well as their experience of their body, and make use of these notions as a resource for creative design. We then report on a series of workshops exploring the relationship between the body and the guitar with a Soma design approach. The workshops resulted in a series of guitar-related artefacts and NIMEs that emerged from the somatic exploration of balance and tension during guitar performance. Lastly we present lessons learned from our research that could inform future Soma-based musical instrument design, and how NIME research may also inform Soma design.},
 address = {Birmingham, UK},
 author = {Martinez Avila, Juan  P and Tsaknaki, Vasiliki and Karpashevich, Pavel and Windlin, Charles and Valenti, Niklas and Höök, Kristina and McPherson, Andrew and Benford, Steve},
 booktitle = {Proceedings of the International Conference on New Interfaces for Musical Expression},
 doi = {10.5281/zenodo.4813491},
 editor = {Romain Michon and Franziska Schroeder},
 issn = {2220-4806},
 month = {July},
 pages = {489--494},
 presentation-video = {https://youtu.be/i4UN_23A_SE},
 publisher = {Birmingham City University},
 title = {Soma Design for NIME},
 url = {https://www.nime.org/proceedings/2020/nime2020_paper93.pdf},
 year = {2020}
}