The fact that consonant musical intervals are based on specific whole number ratios of frequencies of sound has been recognized and visually demonstrated already in classical antiquity. Later, such ratios became the basis of Renaissance proportional theories. This has been well documented by Wittkower and more recently by Howard and Longair, but appears to be the only aspect of architecture whose relationship to music has been studied with serious attention. Other elements of music, such as rhythm or colour receive occasional mention, but usually in a most cursory sense or in reference to other disciplines. In this study key systems of architecture will be identified in an approximate relationship to the key elements of music. It will also be attempted to demonstrate that the creative structural coherence of such systems can offer a clue to the underlying environmental quality of significant works of architecture.
The purpose of my research was to
explore the musical spaces in Macau and the different
realities co-constructed by the peoples of this multi-cultural society. In this paper, I will explain how relocating
to Macau has offered me an entirely new experience of inter-subjective
meaning-making, and I will describe some of my observations of the musical
spaces co-constructed by the peoples in these parts – a mix of musical
narratives exploding in a multi-dimensional and multi-cultural context where
the gaming industry dominates, and where people are creating alternatives to
the isolation of living in high-rise apartment blocks.
The use of “open” or “variable” forms have preoccupied many artists since the beginning of the twentieth century and challenged the single trajectory of the art work. The use of such forms in music (the principal focus of my presentation) can be identified in the works of composers in the immediate post-war years. Particularly celebrated examples include the (unfinished) “Third Piano Sonata” by Pierre Boulez, “Scambi” by Henri Pousseur and “Klavierstück XI” by Karlheinz Stockhausen. However, the use of the term “open” disguises many underlying differences in approach and aesthetic attitudes. It could be argued that there are many types of “open” form each with its own inherent potential and tendency for development. My paper will concentrate on musical applications of the “open” form with reference to specific compositions such as “Scambi” and Henri Pousseur’s belief that the “open” form is a reflection of a model of society. I will also place the “open” form in historical context and discuss the connections with other art forms. For example, “openness” can be identified in works of literature such as “le Livre” by Stéphane Mallarmé, the “Cent mille milliards de poèmes” by Raymond Queneau. In addition, the mobiles of Alexander Calder can be considered to exemplify similar (though not identical) concerns. Thus, I intend to investigate not only the similarities but also the difference between the concepts of “openness” in these various art forms.
One of the most important concepts employed in the analysis of tonal music is prolongation. This concept played a central role in the theories of Schenker, who believed that all forms in tonal music are ultimately derived from the prolongation of the consonant triad. In this sense, prolongation is related to such concepts as stability, hierarchy, background/foreground, and structural unity. The concept itself raises important questions with respect to the nature of temporal experiences in music. This paper applies the concept of prolongation to poetry by arguing that the functional distinction between first-person and third-person utterances can be employed to establish prolongational connections in verbal discourse.
Professor Jean P. Freeman, Marymount University, USA
Prologue to Modern Architecture:
Theory of Chaos The science of chaos, which came into the forefront in the
1960s and 1970s, is the basis of this analysis on late modern architecture and
design. Theories of chaos interrupted conventional scientific disciplines by
attaching, unrelated types of wildness and irregularity, such as, global
weather changes and the mathematical concept of fractals. It is highly
mathematical in its origins, but references common scientific questions. These
same concepts can be used to understand the architecture and design of such
people as Zahad Hadid, Eisenman, LeCorbusier, Gehry and others. Some of their designs appear chaotic,
random, erratic, however, there is order and pattern
and a new disciple, which has evolved. This paper will address a way of
understanding the complexities. There are theatricalization
of the architectural experiences. The emergence of spaces that filter light,
become barriers, address alternatives to the skin of the forms are all evident
in the works of these designers.
Paolo Caleo
and Fiammetta Venuti, Architects, Italy
In a very general manner, optimisation is the search of the best decision among a system of circumstances. Mathematically the problem corresponds to introduce a functional, called objective function, that measures the goodness of the decision, and a set of boundary conditions, described by inequalities, that determines the feasibility space (Comincioli 1995). Also in the field of Aeronautical Engineering and, more recently, of Civil Engineering the optimisation tools assume gradually increasing relief, because they allow a multidisciplinary and rigorous approach to design in a reduced time. Depending of the choice of design variable and objective function type, it is possible to distinguish three levels of engineering optimisation, in complexity order: i) size optimisation, ii) shape optimisation, iii) topological optimisation (Bletzinger, 2002). This memory describes the application of shape- and topological optimisation tools in the delicate phase of form finding. In particular, it will be shown how the application of the these tools, developed in the field of Engineering, represents especially in the fields of Architecture- and Industrial-design a useful aid in extending the complexity and finding out new forms from particular situations and boundary conditions.
Professor Jiang Lu, Eastern Michigan University, USA
The traditional Chinese dwellings
are rich in decorative motifs. The courtyard houses in Beijing
are no exception. The decorative motifs can be found everywhere from the
foundation to the roof ridge, and they are implemented in many different forms
including metal fittings, stone and brick carving, wood carving, and decorative
painting. These motifs are in may different thematic
categories that include geometric patterns, animals, plants, human figures,
artifacts, and textual patterns. This study examines the decorative motifs in terms
of their subject matters and symbolic meanings. This study reveals that there are three major mechanisms through which
symbolic meanings are assigned to decorative motifs. The first is the direct
graphic depiction of symbolic images. The second is an ideographic implication
in which symbolic objects are used to reveal the meanings indirectly through
conventional interpretation and derivation. The third is phonetic association
in which puns are made to convey the symbolic meaning. By decoding the decorative
motifs, this study reveals that the symbolic meanings of the appealingly
unrelated motifs of various categories are highly related with a central theme
deeply rooted in the Chinese cultural tradition. The decorative motifs actually
form a semiotic system highly synchronized in a loud chorus propagating the
Confucian ideals of happy life: longevity, great number of sons, good official
titles, and harmonious family ties.
Dr.
Jin Feng, Iowa State University, USA
The Traditional Chinese Garden as an Experiential System The spaces and scenic spots in traditional Chinese gardens were composed to produce wonderful experiences for people to stroll through. The wonders of a garden are revealed in carefully planned spatial sequences in which the visitor’s aesthetic enjoyment is enhanced. In this sense, the garden should be seen as a system in which individual nodes are linked in meaningful ways to form dramatic relationship between the nodes. The articulation of the relationship between nodes creates wonders in the visitor’s experience, comparable to the exciting enjoyment of a crescendo after a diminuendo in music. This study focuses on the experiential relationship between scenic nodes in a digitally reconstructed Chinese garden originally constructed in the early18th century, when the compositional theory of garden design was first formulated. This study explores the multiple possibilities of spatial sequences that a visitor may take to obtain different aesthetic experiences, and this study discovers that the garden under study, as a complex experiential system, indeed supports alternative routes and provides varied aesthetic experience. In this study, the digital virtual reality technology is used to allow the investigator to virtually explore the spaces and record the spatial sequences.
Mr. Tuukka Ilomäki, Sibelius Academy, Finland
A composition needs to establish an equilibrium between unity and diversity. Passages with
different characteristics provide diversity. Unity is created by the listener
being able to recognize relations between the passages. The difficulty of the recognition of row
transformations has been argued to downgrade the viability of the twelve-tone
technique as a compositional method. However, Schoenberg did not intend the row
forms to be recognized and he deeply disliked the idea of “counting the tones”.
Instead, twelve-tone technique can be used with several different strategies to
reach Schoenberg's original goal: to guarantee unity in a composition. An analysis of three pieces by Schoenberg, Webern and Berg exemplifies how unity can be achieved
through the pitch-class succession, interval structure, and hexachord areas
defined by a row. Consequently, recognition of the actual row forms on-the-fly
is not necessary for the listener to appreciate the unity in a twelve-tone
piece.
Some Aspects on Music
Scripting Languages—
A Comparative Study of the
Scripting Languages of Sibelius and ENP
Dr. Mikael Laurson and Mika Kuuskankare, Sibelius Academy, Finland
In this paper we examine and compare the scripting languages of two music notation programs, Sibelius and ENP. ENP is a music notation program that we have developed in order to meet the requirements of computer aided composition, music analysis and virtual instrument control. It is programmed in Lisp and OpenGL. Sibelius, on the other hand, is a widely used commercial notation program that runs on multiple platforms. Scripting languages are programming languages that are usually weakly typed and interpreted rather than compiled. A scripting program, a script, is normally used to automate complex or advanced tasks within the program. In a music notation program one could typically use a script to apply an articulation pattern to a passage of music, to recalculate the enharmonic identity of selected notes, etc. In ENP we use a constraint-based scripting language derived from PWConstraints. Our approach allows to define and identify complex musical patterns with the help of a pattern-matching syntax. This is an ability that cannot be found in other music scripting languages. Sibelius, in turn, allows the user to write scripts using the built-in scripting language called ManuScript. The ManuScript syntax resembles, in many aspects, Java and C++. In our presentation we will introduce the basic concepts behind the two scripting languages. We also present and compare in detail a number of example scripts.
Dr. Pedro Rebelo and Mr. Graham McAllister, Sonic Arts Research Centre, Queen's University,
Belfast, Northern Ireland
The
instrument in music performance has an important role in defining much of the
sonic constructs that allow for participation in a music culture. The
instrument provides the most immediate vehicle for the sensory modalities of
hearing, seeing and touching. As different materials in architectural space
articulate the production of sensuality, in music performance this role is
taken by the instrument. Recent technology facilitated and made widespread a
desire for the design of new instruments and music making devices. Much of
recent work in sound art and electronic music involves a rethinking of instrument
design, be it by modifying an acoustic instrument, designing an electronic
controller or developing a software environment.
Sonic Constructs is an interactive sound installation that uses Lego Mindstorm as semi-automata musical robots. In Sonic Constructs, two robotic devices move and interact while performing trajectories that produce sound as a by-product of the movement itself. Direction, speed, acceleration, position, scratching and collision become parameters of an environment for kinetic and acoustic participation. The surface on which the robots are placed functions as a sound stage as well as a platform for interaction. As Lego pieces collide, move and scratch, a complex sonic world is orchestrated. These, sometimes microscopic sonic events are brought to the foreground and are further manipulated with real-time spectral processes.
Professor Sheila Danko, Cornell University, USA
Whole Person/Whole Designing: Nurturing Whole Systems Thinking through Storytelling This presentation explores the emerging perspective of “whole systems design” (WSD) in relation to interior design education and leadership development. It positions design as a systemic change agent that impacts a continuum of experience from the individual, to the group, to the organization and ultimate to society. Systems theory, living systems and self-organizing systems are concepts that designers must use to underpin their creative products if designers are to play a leadership role in society. In his seminal book, The Fifth Discipline, Peter Senge argues that “leaders” must see themselves as “designers.” As design educators, we must help our students see themselves as not only artists, but as change agents and leaders. But how do we build that self-reflection into the creative design process? This presentation presents several studio interventions where narrative method or “storytelling” was used as a creative design method to build a deeply holistic, and humanistic perspective into the interior environments being designed. It also was used as a means of leadership development, helping students to reflect on their own roles as agents of change. Several creative outputs in the form of original stories will be shared which illustrate whole systems thinking through storytelling as well as student responses which reflect on narrative method as a tool for developing self-awareness and self in relation to society – two critical components of leadership development.
Dr.
George H. Olson and Dr. Margot Olson, Appalachian State University, USA
A prototype presentation, using historic kitchen images, both still and motion, from the American Memory Historical Collections (AMC) at the U. S. Library of Congress (LOC) will be demonstrated through use of a computerized graphics program (e.g., PowerPoint). Many of the images in the collection are available for publication without necessity of copyright permissions. The AMC includes historical documents, many of which are pictures, that date to the early 19th century. The images include architecture, which is relevant for interior design, but also include historical documents such as wills and films, which document life styles. The AMC provides images that take computerized graphic programs beyond a fancy version of overheads to a rich collection of visual images and sound. Images from the American Memories Collections can be downloaded from the web.
Professor
Gillian Davies, Savannah School of Art and Design, USA
This paper examines early modernism as the presentation of a constructed
vision which marginalized female designers, formulated particularly in relation
to historically perceived gender identities. The illusion of autonomy in
modernist theory conflicted with economic, sexual, and psychological meaning in
interior design, space and place. Regarding the universalist
architectural aesthetic of the European discourse of early modernist thought Gender theory
will be related to social roles and internal exchange amongst the modernist avant-garde. The life and work of Elsie de Wolfe will be
scrutinized in relation to the
profession of interior design practice and the production and consumption of
modernism. The nature of her clients, colleagues and critics at the time and
subsequently will be examined to enable a number of crucial configurations,
conjunctions and disjunctions to be interrogated within a clutch of parallel
focuses which form a duality with the concept of feminine subjectivity.
Oppositional paradigms of exteriority/interiority, will be scrutinized with regard to
paradigmatic modernist values. Foucault, and Derrida
regard binary oppositions as essential constructors of difference and value in
language, power and discourse, so a more sensitive approach to difference, not
posited on binary opposites, will challenge the reductive divisions between
public and private, male and female and the patriarchal divisiveness of the
modernist ‘narrative’.
Dr. Ivani Santana, Federal University of Bahia, Brazil and Dr. Fernando Iazzetta,
University of São Paulo, Brazil
In the information era dance
performance is taken as a construct which results from the relationship between
the biological and technological bodies. The idea of liveness
can be understood as a process of communication in which these two bodies are
no longer disengaged nor distinct. In this sense, the
notion of liveness in mediatized
performance acquires new implications, different from the ones proposed by
different authors such as Peggy Phelan and Phillipe Auslander. This article addresses some issues related to
the idea of liveness in mediatized
dance performance, such as real time vs delayed time,
real body vs virtual body. Taking the theories of
Semiotics (C.S.Peirce), Evolution (R.Dawkins et al.) and some branches of Cognitive Sciences
(G. Lakoff, M. Johnson et al.) as a point of
departure we propose to discuss the role of technology in a mediatized
culture as an agent which operates in the configuration of new instances of
what can be understood as liveness.
Based on this conceptual
framework we propose a reflection on the use of new technologies in dance and
its implications for the establishment of new configurations in which body,
dance, music, image and environment are used to challenge the dichotomies
between mind/body, natural/artificial and real/virtual. For this purpose we
present an analysis of two works - "Corpo Aberto" (Open Body - 2001) and "Pele" (Skin - 2002) created by the choreographer Ivani Santana in collaboration with the composer Fernando Iazzetta. These multimedia/dance works result from a
partnership established between the two artists since 1996 and are focused on
the critical exploration of the use of new media in the creative processes that
are embodied in contemporary performances.
Ms. Hee-Seung Choi, Peabody Institute of Johns Hopkins University, USA
The work I wish to present is a
multimedia project called "I-Circle" that involves music, video
and a solo dancer. It grew out of my fascination with the human figure in
motion and my desire to create living spatial collage. The
music uses synthesized sound and incorporates pop music elements. The video
clips consist of kaleidoscopic images, images of the dancer, and those of my
own drawings. Their unfolding is a reflection of the rhythm, phrasing, and
the overall form of the music. The live dance movements are conceived as a
spatial extension of what is shown on the video as a responsive reaction
or in juxtaposition to it. The dancer uses an ocean drum as a prop,
creating sound which also becomes an integral part of the music.
"I-Circle" just received its first performance at the Peabody
Institute of Johns Hopkins University.
Dr. Tatjana Böhme-Mehner, Universität Halle, Germany
The paper will deal with some
results of my doctoral dissertation finished in 2003 about the chances of
system research approaches by Niklas Luhmann in musicology. The Luhmannian
theory will be introduced very shortly in general before some basic terms and
ideas in the context of musicological research and theory will be discussed. As
an example I would like to chose opera, because it
offers the possibility to discus a complex phenomenon on a more or less
theoretical level and in terms of analysis in the concrete opera. The Luhmannian approach – especially in some terms – is used as
a model to explain some aspects in a certain way seen as problematic by other
theories. So it offers interesting chances to explain certain problems in
tradition, reception, interpretation and production. Some possible approaches
for a musicological use of the Luhmannian system
research will be demonstrated by some ideas about Richard Strauss’ “Der Rosenkavalier”. This opera is very often seen as a
quite problematic step backwards after having written “Avantgarde-“Operas like
“Salome” or “Elektra”. This step backwards can be explained as a necessary
action to keep opera as a system more or less constant and to save it. On the
other hand this opera offers a lot of aspects to demonstrate self-reference of
the system opera as a genre within the story.