Music 256a Reading Response 5

Angel Fan

Reading Response

Artful Design Ch. 5

Chapter 5 of Artful Design feels like a wild ride through a multitude of inventions, like touring the brain children of Perry Cook and Ge Wang and the various design principles that helped conceive these interfaces. Ultimately, the two principles that stood out the most to me were Principle 5.6 and Principle 5.19. These principles seem very separate and almost oppositional in nature, which is why I believe they complement each other. It reminds me of the oppositional yet complementary nature of designing technology in pursuit of the sublime. Principle 5.6 is practical, logical, and grounded--representing the technological component to me. It outlines how to design a new musical interface and breaks down the steps. Having limited experience with music, let alone designing a new musical interface, it was helpful to have simple and specific steps and order then apply this to the musical interfaces I’ve seen like for example Perry Cook’s rubber chicken interface. It all boils down to input, output, and mapping. For the rubber chicken interface, the user wacks or pulls the chicken and it produces sound. There are various differently colored chickens that widen the possibility of sounds you can make and meanwhile you can enjoy the sensation of wacking and pulling rubber chickens and the novelty of an instrument composed of them. It also made me think about what parts are human and what parts are computational. To me, the input should be human, the output should be computed, and mapping is where the interconnectivity between person and machine occurs. However, the possibility of modularity discussed in principle 5.6 introduces more complex interactions between the user and the interface. Within the technological side of the interface near infinite possibilities arise, but as for input we are limited by the user and their capabilities. For example, you probably wouldn’t want the user input to be the user performing a double back flip, but once the input is mapped into the computational side you can practically accomplish anything. I find this combination of freedom and strict limitations an extremely exciting template for design work. That being said, even the technology side has its limitations as outlined by Principle 5.19 stating that interfaces should extend us and not replace us! So perhaps before diving into the exciting world of AI and artificial neural networks we might want to stop and think about where the user gets involved. To me, if the ‘interface’ can replace a user and doesn’t require any user input at all, it is no longer an interface and just another piece of technology. Interaction is such a huge part of artful design from what we’ve read thus far and should always be at the forefront. I also largely wanted to explore the world of music science and technology because of the core principle taught in this realm of engineering with a soul. It can be hard to quite identify what that means, but I believe a big part of that is always remembering the human component and prioritizing that. Perhaps that’s why Principle 5.6 STARTS with input, thinking about what the person would do with the interface rather than jumping to how it will look or the sound it will produce for example. I also liked that Principle 5.19 defined these interfaces as extensions of our bodies in addition to our minds, which I believe is underutilized in modern everyday technologies. Many of the instruments built that were used as examples involve full body movement to make them work, which expands the design possibilities and creates something that seems harmonious with the human body and much more interesting than if it were just limited to your brain and your hands like it feels like most technology is. To me, Principle 5.19 is the philosophical and soulful counterpart to the logical Principle 5.6 and while there are many interesting and important principles covered in this chapter, I find these two in conjunction with each other to be particularly helpful and memorable.