to Artful Design • Chapter 5: “Interface Design”
Peter Li
10/27/2024
Music 256A / CS 476A, Stanford University
Reading Response: Cabbage Instrument? Bottle Instrument.
From this week's reading, I'd like to respond to a number of principles in chapter 5 of Artful Design, the first being Principle 5.2, which states:
Principle 5.2: There Is an Aesthetic to Interaction
Continuing the theme of LA art exhibits from last week, this idea greatly resonates with another body of work I observed at MOCA (The Museum of Contemporary Art). At the museum are several panels of irregular shape that consist of 3D patterns of triangular prisms. The overall object was so irregular yet consisted of so many regular shapes, which was what made it mesmerizing to me. As I stepped close to each panel, the reflection of me was produced in complex, yet symmetrical patterns. Witnessing the production of such complex refractions of my reflection was a sensational experience and could not be justified simply by the word “aesthetic”, but nevertheless this is a wonderful example of how to build aesthetics into design in my opinion.
Now, I would like to respond to Perry Cook’s Principles for Designing Computer Music Controllers. Reading about how Perry integrates them into his computer music designs amazed me and invites me to draw on one prior experience of mine, where I unintentionally designed a musical instrument. Rewind to summer 2019, when I was participating in a music production summer program. We just learned about how to sample almost any small bit of audio and chop it to create fascinating audio effects. That was also the day when the program gave every participant a metal water bottle. Later that day, my dorm mates and I were in the common room of our suite casually chatting. The conversation shifted from the instructor using me as a guinea pig to demonstrate vocal chopping (this is surely a core memory for me) to the new bottles we received. At this time, one of us randomly “whacked” his bottle against the ground, producing a sound that was rather musical. A few of us (including me) then decided to whack our bottles against the ground as well. Surprisingly, I realized that our bottles produced different pitches, them being D, E, and F primarily. This was when inspiration struck – I gathered everyone’s bottles and improvised a short melody out of the 3 notes we could choose from. My friend then responded by picking up a pen and drumming it on the table with intricate rhythms. It went a little something like this…
We then produced the idea into a full song…
Looking back, this was one of my favorite moments making music together with friends, and we didn’t even do it with conventional musical instruments! Reading about Perry’s Coffee Mug, Digital Shakers, and voice controller Lisa was eye-opening in terms of how everyday objects could be so closely tied to computer music and surprising as how unconventional music-making could be if we really thought outside the box of traditional instruments. These designs show that computer music instruments could and should be created with human interaction in mind. As a result, they should feel “alive” and be artful!
Finally, one question I pose on the realm of interface design is the ability of a computer music instrument to be mass produced and how much that factor should be considered when designing an instrument. Perhaps a design could be super aesthetically pleasing and produce wonderful music yet moderately difficult to mass produce. Or perhaps the opposite is true. I’m curious as to how this dynamic plays into research into this field, as I think popularity should certainly be considered! (We wouldn’t still be playing the classical instruments we know today if they weren’t widely popular for so long, right?)
PS. I really enjoyed learning about the backstory of SLOrk and how the HEMIs got created! It was satisfying to see how they went from IKEA salad bowls to the machines I got a chance to closely work with this year.