EA - Teses de Doutoramento / Doctoral Theses
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- Adaptive user interfaces for live performance of generative graphicsPublication . Gomes, Joana Fernandes de Carvalho; Barbosa, Álvaro MendesWhile attempting to find new ways to create art, artists transgress the traditional notions of creativity and art. Computers start to have creative behaviors in which the artist conducts his work. Both, generative practices and interactivity have a special impact on the creation of Art and in its new relationships. Interactivity and generative processes can create a space for genuine innovative creative practices in art where the artwork is the result of collaborative work between computers and users. Is our goal to express generative practices not as a static creative process, but instead as an iterative communication between system and interface/ interface and user. This collaboration between system, user and artist gains higher relevance through the creation of an interface that is capable of synthesizing these expressions. In the process of identification of a new way of relating generative graphics systems and user/performer, an application for mobile devices was developed where interaction takes into account the need to express the generative processes through the interface, generating a greater connection between the three parties (generative system, interface system and user). This need comes from the generative system itself since it is semi-autonomous and is constantly undergoing modifications exhausted in any type of static and rigid interface . Sliders and buttons take away the freedom of a system that aims to expand connections and collaborations, where the authoritarian act of the user/performer overrides the choices of the system by imposing their own. ALIVEART proposes a new form of communication where the generative graphics interface adapts depending on the characteristics of an artificial living system. Thus, the parameters set by the system are modified on the interface showing only those that the user may interact. Over time these choices cause modification of the a-life as well as the interface. The result is a system that algorithmically, via sound inputs, draws graphics that are modified by an adaptive interface. Rather than change the operation of the interface, we sought to create new interaction paradigms in which the user’s interference is revised by proposing a more conscious way to interact with artificial living systems. Via a survey of three areas of expertise (designers, performers and user interface experts), ALIVEART was assessed. New areas of interest were identified that confirmed the necessity to implement interfaces that adapt to systems and users thus allowing new forms of relationships and creative processes in the creation of digital art.
- O arco : a padronização gestual dos golpes de arco para o ensino-aprendizagem do violinoPublication . Pinto, Ana Catarina Lopes; Fonseca, Sofia Inês Ribeiro Lourenço da; Ferreira-Lopes, PauloO principal objetivo desta pesquisa centra-se na compreensão dos movimentos somáticos necessários para a reprodução dos diferentes golpes de arco, com o objetivo final de se alcançarem padronizações gestuais de cada golpe de arco. Investigações anteriores (Pinto, 2016) demonstram que a técnica do arco representa um dos maiores desafios para os violinistas. Através de uma investigação de âmbito metodológico experimental em laboratório que envolveu 30 violinistas, foi possível a gravação - em formato de som, vídeo e Motion Capture, de um total de 1260 interpretações, resultado de uma criteriosa seleção de 42 excertos musicais representativos de cada um dos golpes de arco em estudo. Todas as gravações de som foram sujeitas à apreciação de um júri, que selecionou a melhor interpretação de cada excerto do grupo 1 (participantes com fato), a melhor interpretação do grupo 2 (participantes sem fato), e a pior interpretação de ambos os grupos. Desta seleção foram criadas, através da utilização do vídeo e dos dados recolhidos no Motion Capture, as pretendidas padronizações gestuais – que se traduziram em vídeos didáticos e que permitem a observação dos vários componentes em análise de cada golpe de arco em estudo. Efetuada a análise dos questionários implementados, foi também possível concluir-se que os participantes, de forma geral, desconheciam a Tecnologia de Captura de Movimento (90%), e que todos os participantes (100%) entendem que esta estratégia pode ser muito útil, apontando como principais motivos: a simplificação da aprendizagem dos golpes de arco; a possibilidade de visualização, compreensão, correção e consciencialização do próprio gesto por cada violinista; e a possibilidade de corrigir a postura e de, consequentemente, prevenir lesões. Partindo das conclusões deste trabalho foi ainda possível: 1) perceber quais as diferenças/semelhanças na interpretação dos diferentes golpes de arco em obras de diferentes períodos da história da música: barroco, classicismo, romantismo e música moderna (1900-); 2) compreender quais as diferenças/semelhanças na execução dos golpes de arco de pessoa para pessoa; 3) perceber se alguns dos componentes analisados são decisivos para o sucesso/insucesso da execução de cada golpe de arco; 4) entender se a tecnologia de captura de movimento pode ser ou não utilizada como recurso e estratégia no ensino do violino; 5) perceber quais as dificuldades/facilidades sentidas pelos participantes na execução dos diferentes golpes de arco; 6) compreender a importância da padronização na aprendizagem musical; 7) e auferir o conhecimento da nomenclatura de cada um dos golpes de arco realizados por parte dos participantes. Em suma, este estudo pretende não só servir de reflexão, análise e aprendizagem dos diferentes movimentos necessários para a execução dos diferentes golpes de arco no repertório mainstream de violino, mas também de coadjuvação para violinistas e professores de violino.
- Automatic mixing systems using adaptive digital audio effectsPublication . Pestana, Pedro Duarte Leal Gomes; Barbosa, Álvaro; Reiss, Joshua D.The field of Automatic Mixing has been ripe with research over the past five years. There are now systems that emulate level and panning decisions with some sophistication, and these have been evaluated as being close in quality to o↵erings produced by a professional sound engineer. However, a real-world mix is an integrated e↵ort between several axes, and we are missing a ground-truth on how expert mixers holistically perform their art and craft. The purpose of this thesis is to fill that knowledge gap in what mixing best practices are. An exhaustive number of approaches were made to complete this endeavor, starting with a review of academic, technical and non-technical literature. A significant number of interviews with expert professional mixers followed, which led to a quantitative questionnaire in best practices. Simultaneously, over 20 di↵erent subjective evaluation tests were performed with the collaboration of medium-skilled to expert listeners. Another validation approach was through the devising of algorithms that could extract significative content from full-mixes. The pursuit of these goals involved the creation of two extensive datasets, one of multi-track unmixed material, and a second one of commercially very successful songs to be analyzed for production patterns. All these concurrent e↵orts led to the creation of a shifting collection of assumptions that crystalized into its final form as the 88-assumption database that is the kernel of this thesis. Unlike previous e↵orts, it focuses on top-quality, o✏ine, studio mixing of music. For validation process whenever possible, and summarized e↵orts done so far in terms of implementation. As a part of the testing and validation process, many implementation algorithms were developed, some of them novel, and are described together with the assumptions that inspired them. The work was organized so that it may contribute as a self-contained blueprint to many of the upcoming approaches to computer-assisted mixing. Despite the considerable length of our e↵ort, we acknowledge that there is so much more to unravel on this topic, that the present work serves only as a modest foundation stone, probably opening up more questions for further research than the ones it now closes.
- Cantar em coro : estudo de caso de uma área do Norte Litoral de PortugalPublication . Seixas, Ana Maria da Costa Veloso; Coimbra, Daniela; Antunes, PauloEsta tese debruça-se sobre as motivações que levam pessoas de diferentes faixas etárias, sexos, idades e classes sociais a integrar e a permanecer num coro e analisa a importância desta actividade nas suas vidas. Para alcançar o objectivo principal do presente estudo, a análise dos motivos de entrada e permanência num coro, desenhou-se um questionário que foi aplicado a uma população amostral de 236 elementos, com idades compreendidas entre os oito e os oitenta anos, de diversas ocupações profissionais e distribuídos por doze coros do Litoral Norte de Portugal de acordo com três categorias distintas (litúrgico, escolar e amador). A análise dos resultados indicou que mais mulheres do que homens frequentam os coros, independentemente do tipo de coro e que os inquiridos atribuem uma importância inequívoca a cantar em coro, destacando-se a aprendizagem como factor principal transversal a todos os inquiridos nos diferentes coros. Seguem-se a oportunidade de convívio, de trabalhar em equipa e por fim o gosto por cantar e por aprender. Quando considerados individualmente, os motivos atribuídos à importância de cantar em coro, variam em função do tipo de coro e da idade, os quais são descritos pormenorizadamente. Relativamente aos motivos de entrada num determinado coro, os resultados apontaram o gosto pelo canto, seguido da necessidade de satisfazer o plano escolar, a resposta a um convite, o desejo de aprender, a necessidade de conviver e de realização pessoal e por fim as saídas profissionais que prevalecem nas decisões dos inquiridos. Quanto à permanência no coro prevalece como principal factor de motivação, transversal a todos os coros, o gosto por cantar em coro seguido pelo convívio, e pelo desejo de aprendizagem. Estes resultados verificam-se também por tipo de coro. O maestro foi considerado um factor importante para a permanência num coro, na qual se destaca a experiência pessoal muito boa com o maestro. No que respeita às competências necessárias para cantar em coro, emergem os factores de ter boa voz, seguido de ter espírito de grupo, ter bom ouvido, gostar, estar motivado, ser disciplinado, ser humilde e, por fim, ter disponibilidade. Salienta-se, como conclusão fundamental deste estudo, que a prática coral contribui para o desenvolvimento cognitivo e musical dos participantes, para o seu desenvolvimento/integração social e para perpetuar o património cultural.
- Casa Michel de Worms Irmãos : as joias, as joalherias e o comércio de luxo na cidade de São Paulo no período de 1880-1940Publication . Skoda, Sónia Maria de Oliveira Gonçalves; Sousa, Gonçalo Vasconcelos eNesta tese, procurou-se examinar a presença das joalherias e joalheiros, o uso das joias e o papel que elas tiveram para a sociedade na cidade de São Paulo entre 1880 e 1940, período em que a cafeicultura enriqueceu a elite e trouxe desenvolvimento para a capital paulista. Nesse contexto, ocorreram profundas transformações no comércio, na indústria, no urbanismo, nas sociabilidades e na moda, acompanhadas do crescimento populacional. Também surgiu uma classe social mais exigente, propiciando um comércio mais especializado. O luxo passou a ser um importante segmento de negócios no qual a marca, o design e a beleza passaram a se impor na sociedade brasileira, que acatava a influência da França – ícone da elegância. As joalherias se especializaram, importando e comercializando joias, relógios, objetos de arte, decoração e utilitários, itens importantes adquiridos para presentear em casamentos, integrando as corbeilles de mariage, em festas de Natal, Ano-Novo, entre outras ocasiões especiais. Foi no Triângulo Central, e principalmente na Rua 15 de Novembro, onde parte das joalherias se estabeleceram. Entre estas se destacou a Casa Michel de Worms Irmãos, joalheiros de origem francesa cujos antepassados já haviam trabalhado neste ramo de negócios e possuíam conhecimento do ofício. Com filial no Rio de Janeiro, Santos, Buenos Aires e Montevideo, a joalheria tinha casa de compras em Paris, de onde fazia suas importações. Os estabelecimentos comercializavam joias de metais nobres e gema; relógios de marcas suíças, alemãs e outras; objetos de arte, decoração e utilitários de afamados fornecedores estrangeiros. Entre 1880 e 1940, esses produtos seguiram as tendências artísticas europeias dos estilos Neoclássico, Belle Époque, Art Nouveau e Art Déco. No Catálogo Geral da Casa Michel de 1913, podem-se observar a tendência estética e a diversidade de produtos comercializados, assim como no Catálogo de 1937. Os irmãos Worms, bem como outros proprietários de joalherias elencadas neste trabalho, procuravam participar de eventos sociais, esportivos e culturais da sociedade paulista, ganhando, assim, a confiança e o prestígio de uma elite que procurava se afirmar.
- Casas das elites de Lisboa : objectos, interiores e vivências : 1750-1830Publication . Franco, Carlos José de Almeida; Sousa, Gonçalo de Vasconcelos eNa presente dissertação propusemo-nos estudar os objectos, os interiores e as vivências das casas das elites lisboetas no período de 1750 a 1830. Tentámos compreender as transformações políticas e económicas ocorridas naquele período de tempo, os hábitos sociais, as expressões do gosto e modernidade, apurar ícones de ostentação e aparato, integrando-os no espaço doméstico. Numa perspectiva abrangente, cruzámos várias dimensões do património, não privilegiando nenhuma delas, antes preferindo permanecer atentos aos sinais de todas. Estas residências, que ao longo do século XVIII ainda se caracterizam por uma organização interior onde prevalece a interdependência dos diversos compartimentos, tenderão, lentamente, no último quartel de Setecentos, a criar três grandes zonas que acolhem o aparato, a sociedade e a intimidade, procurando distinguir e racionalizar espaços em função de novas sociabilidades emergentes. Os múltiplos objectos que existem nas casas também se modificam, em função das novas necessidades sociais. Estes bens, para além de representantes de uma sociabilidade crescente, tornam-se expoentes de novos hábitos, de âmbito alargado, que vai desde a alimentação e as bebidas até à higiene, à dança, aos jogos, à música ou à escrita, entre outros. Constatamos que as muitas transformações ocorridas ao longo da segunda metade do século XVIII e primeiro quartel de Oitocentos, a par dos novos modelos de sociabilidade ensaiados pelas principais figuras de elite, anunciam os modos de vida e as casas da Lisboa contemporânea.
- Collaborative prototyping and hacking : re-inventing the museum space in the age of information technologyPublication . Estadieu, Gérald Vincent; Duarte Sena Caires, CarlosInteractivity is a complex phenomenon to apprehend. Past researches have defined interactivity in contrasting terms: from a tautological expression of a computer-based system (Adams, 1999) to an independent system capable of intelligent dialogue (Smuts, 2009). We are presenting, based on the literature review, the spectrum of interactivity as a gradual complex system that can evolve in time. The majority of interactive apparatuses evaluated in academic publications have all looked at the interactivity under the prism of the audience engagement. However, following authors such as Crawford and Weissberg, we are arguing that interactivity has its inherent properties, independently of the interactor and its environment. The context of this research is specified in the first part of this thesis by introducing, not only the interactivity but also the museum as a public space in quest of interactivity and finally, the hacking methodology. This methodology is inspired by the hacking community and has evolved into a creative process. We are then running an experimental study mainly based on Museomix, the playground of our research, where collaborative prototyping and hacking are part of the core values for offering new mediation to museums. This thesis presents the development of a holistic approach to understand and classify interactive apparatuses based solely on their properties; this has led us to propose a comprehensive framework to collect information from a large dataset of experimentations and to demonstrate the potential of this framework to provide a deeper understanding of the modes of interactivity and help us to classify them in our context of museology.
- Composição de sistemas musicais interactivosPublication . Cardoso, Miguel Marques; Dias, António de Sousa; Martins, Luís GustavoThis work proposes a contribute to the understanding of computer-based interactive music practices, in order to establish methodologies that can provide a more transparent, flexible and dynamic process in related compositional activity. This research is developed by examining and articulating complementary perspectives on the intersection of computer music with interaction. We begin by researching on models, materials, techniques and concepts that can contribute to this practice, attempting to understand the affordances and constraints that the computational medium provides. We then study how interaction has contributed to the contemporary context of interactive music practices by reshaping the relationship between the composer, the performer, the audience and the environment. In order to further scrutinize the potential of computer-based interactive music, we investigate new programming paradigms and how they can yield a more adequate context for artistic practices such as music. Complementing these explorations, we implement a computational framework, suggesting an alternate approach to interactive music practices.
- Composing with soundscapes : capturing and analysing urban audio for a Raw Musical interpretationPublication . Gomes, José Alberto Sousa; Barbosa, Álvaro Mendes; Penha, Rui Luís NogueiraThe sound environment is increasingly more relevant in contemporary culture. It is a ‘picture’ of a place, an X-ray of its character and activities, shapeless and amorphous, whilst full of meanings and subtleties. It is a transmission that is complementary to what a picture retains and transports. Therefore it is a unique, tangible impression of the place to which it belongs, and intrinsically, its history, and that of the people who inhabit it, and their relations. Murray Schafer termed this element as Soundscape. Although always a present element, it was only from the end of the Twentieth Century that it has been studied in a systematic way, initially in a more ecological and socio-cultural function approach, but slowly it has been seen as an artistic tool, both in direct use of the sounds as well as being an inspiration, and a starting point, for creation. The exploratory research project presented here aims to study the capture and analysis of the urban soundscape, with a special focus on its temporal evolution, and its application in the creative and artistic context. At the first stage, we try to understand how and, if possible, to capture and represent the most challenging part of this massive sound element, which is its constant changing on the time axis. Grasping its nuances on both small and large time scales. The second phase is to understand the pertinence of such information and its direct influence in the act of music and sonic creation. To achieve these goals a multidisciplinary approach based on two main pillars was necessary: Soundscape and Computer Music. These disciplines determine the scientific areas in which this research had to be focused. Due to the fact that this thesis has a relatively broad scope of interests, there is a survey of the state of the art relating to projects and approaches that relate to the interests of this investigation in different ways. In areas such as: Music Information Retrieval, Algorithmic Composition, Eco Composition, and Sound Maps. This survey confirms the contemporaneity, relevance and originality of the project, both scientifically and artistically. In order to evaluate the proposed approach to the soundscape, URB, an experimental system to capture, analyse and store the urban soundscape was developed and implemented. The system is based on current technology, but is affordable and robust. To ensure the sustainability of the project, development was based in open source technology, to ensure the possibility of the project expanding and shaping according to the interests and needs of specific places, populations, research centres and/or artistic interests. Three main goals have guided the development of this system: addressing the lack of temporal perspective of the sound representation of urban spaces; the design of a free and autonomous system that depends only on the users, which results in a public free access database; to facilitate and systematize the access to data on the sound characteristics of an urban soundscape for both ecological studies as well as for creative and artistic purposes. A server keeps a record of the collected data, which can either be read directly, through an application developed for this purpose, or through a visual interface with a time-line approach, but always allowing for the possibility of creating original access tools that best serve the user’s purposes. After implementing the system, through four listening points, and confirming its robustness, we advance to the system’s application in the development of artistic works. For this purpose a challenge was proposed to a number of artists with distinct aesthetic backgrounds and training. This challenge resulted in different works that were presented to the public in different formats and media, such as works for classical instrumental, electro-acoustic works, improvisational moments with real-time sonification of the soundscape, sonic installations and sculptures powered by the system presented. This practice leads to a fundamental reflection in this research. We describe the different approaches chosen by each creator and primarily assess the pertinence in the artistic result of using a continuous and discrete system of urban soundscape analysis, from a creator’s point of view as well as from a listener’s point of view. With this research we are able to present a functional approach to the lack of temporal perspective in the usual sound maps that focus on the geographic origin of the recordings. We conclude that soundscapes can provide useful data for artistic creation and we promote a direct connection between that kind of approach and the artists. Even before the works developed and the artist’s feedback, whilst not ignoring the different approaches and opinions, we can conclude that this approach seems to promote new and functional soundscape composition ideas, making URB a relevant resource to compose original soundscape based music. Also, through analysis of the pieces, we could point out patterns of the technical and artistic choices on how to deal with information from the soundscape data, both in deferred time and real-time.
- Composition with complex data : a contribution on the mapping problem through practice-based researchPublication . Ransbeeck, Samuel Van; Dias, António de SousaComposition with complex data is a field of computer music composition/interactive art that uses extra-musical data from various sources like stock exchange data, weather data or seismic data. Despite the fascination that one can have in his exciting field of composition, there is still a lack of data management applications for artistic use. Hence, one is generally forced to create one’s own applications, at the expense of the time that should be spent in the artistic side of the work. As the technology can be part of the work but never the sole constituent, we decided to develop a toolbox, DataScapR, which allows artists to work easily with data, helping them in focusing on the artistic side. This toolbox will help the user to quickly advance beyond the technical development and focus on the artistic side of the project. This project consists of four components: a theoretical framework for sonification art, a state of the art and discussion on mapping techniques, the development of a sonification toolbox for composers who wish to use complex data (more specifically stock market data) as the source material for their music and a series of works as case studies to show the capabilities of the toolbox. Bringing theory and practice, art and technology together, this project can be seen as a practice-based one embedded within a theoretical framework.