Output details

PORTFOLIO: Manual Actions Expressive System (MAES).

Composition: Ruraq Maki, for digital glove and Manual Actions Expressive System (MAES). Duration: 10:43.

First performance: Sonoimágenes 2012 - Festival Internacional Acusmático y Multimedial, Centro Cultural Recoleta, Buenos Aires, Argentina, 9/11/2012, Rajmil Fischman.

Software: MAES (MAX, C).

Articles: 1) Back to the Parlour.

2) A Manual Actions Expressive System (MAES).

Outputs of AHRC Research Fellowship (2012).

Video recording: Organised Sound DVD 18.

Online video recordings: http://vimeo.com/55093629 and YouTube Channel 'Clasicos Peruanos': http://www.youtube.com/user/clasicosperuanos.

Subsequent Performances: Noisefloor Festival, Stafford University Television Centre, 2/5/13, Rajmil Fischman. In Time 2013, Coventry University, 19/10/13, Rajmil Fischman. ICT 2013, Create, Connect, Grow, Europe 2020 Initiative, Vilnius, 7-8/11/13, Rajmil Fischman.

MAES enables music creation and performance using natural hand actions to generate, shape and manipulate sounds as if these were physical entities within a larger structured environment of independent sonic material (i.e. other entities that act independently from the manipulated sounds). It fosters the preservation of strong links between the causality of gestures and everyday experience of the world, yielding sound that is a believable result of the performer’s natural actions and enabling intimate control of that sound. Gestures are fully programmable through mapping of hand motion and finger bend, allowing performers to concentrate on natural actions from our daily use of the hands (e.g. hitting, shaking, stroking, etc.).

An important aim is the achievement of expressive content and sonic sophistication with simple hand gestures: MAES can be used by individuals who do not have formal musical training because the performing gestures are already ingrained in their neuromuscular system. Yet, it also enables virtuosity in the compositional structuring and articulation of sonic material to a level comparable to outputs produced in the electroacoustic studio: while the gestures remain simple, the mappings associated with these can be sophisticated. Subsuming complexity also articulates sonic manipulation within a larger sonic environment in which, just like real life, we act within our independent surroundings and our actions modify the latter, but do not control it totally. The research focused on the development of an approach for the creation of gestures based on intuitive metaphors, their implementation as software for composition and performance, and their realisation within a musical composition through the choice of suitable mappings, sonic materials and processes.

MAES completes the first stage of an overarching strategy for the realisation of Structured interactive immersive Musical experiences (described in the articles).

This project was supported by AHRC Research Fellowship No. AH/J001562/1.