Non-Linear Volumetric Music Composition in A VR Context: Project "Omega"
Shvets, Anna, Samer Darkazanli · Repository@Nottingham (University of Nottingham) · 2023
Technological progress in development of XR creative spaces influences our perception of the piece of art. The use of gestural control enables interaction with the spatially distributed elements and creates conditions, where the user participates in a co-creation of a virtual experience. When applied to music art, the spatialization along with interactivity promotes non-linearity of musical structure, resulting in a new instance of music, out of the initial set of possibilities. In this article, we present a concept of a volumetric music composition, which maps music form to a 3D VR space, with a possibility of a variance at each mapping point. We implement a concept in a volumetric VR music composition "Omega", which allows the user to choose between two alternative paths at each stage of the form development. The user's action affects not only the changes in music, but triggers the colorization of the surrounding space, color being the reflection of the chosen musical path. Along with the music form spatialization and surroundings colorization, we integrate the paths of gestural movement, which user may choose to follow, adding visual aesthetics to the act of music creation. The synesthetic nature of the composition tightly binds music, color, 3D space and movement into one act of expression in a cocreation of a musical form. The article describes the context, philosophy and details of realisation of the concept's practical implementation.