ICMC 2013 Keynote Address
Agostino Di Scipio · array. the journal of the ICMA · 2020
The following text was prepared by the author for his keynote speech at the opening session of the International Computer Music Conference 2013 (12.08.2013State Theatre Centre, Perth, Western Australia).It discusses the relationship between computing resources and the hybrid technological infrastructures necessary in sound-and music-making practices, as well as to the surrounding physical space where such practices take place.A brief historical survey is outlined of the subsequent connotations of computational tasks and their coupling (or decoupling) to the physical environment: from "calculation", to "communication", to "media processing", to today's "embedded (or physical or tangible) interfaces".In the latter case, a comprehensive view of the "performance ecosystem" seems generally useful to ponder the stronger and stronger integration of different agencies involved, together with a practice-based account situating the performer's (and listener's) body in this ecosystem.As an example, the author illustrates a sound installation work of his own, based on the structural coupling between the acoustics of a room environment and the technical equipment (computational resources, pro-and consumer-level electroacoustic transducers, and mechanical resonators).Albeit personal, the example hopefully illustrates broader artistic concerns and practices in which data from various sources in the environment are admitted as component parts of the computing process.It is suggested that a notion of "computing" seems to materialize here; one that can't be reduced to "information processing", and gets closer to a broader view of "embodied and situated cognition" rooted in the biology of cognition and the epistemology of living systems.