M. Meta - The World-views, Beliefs and Artistic Frameworks that Shape the Digital Score

The Meta dimension is the “horizontal” layer that hangs over the sensory- and agent-based dimensions. It supplies the cultural, philosophical and ideological scaffolding that explains why a system behaves a certain way, why a visual cue adopts a particular colour and why a performer feels compelled either to comply with or to resist a given interaction.

Core Analytical Concerns

From the DigiScore corpus analysis six inter-related concerns structure the analysis of the Meta dimension: 1) Metaphorical world-views describe overarching narratives such as journeys, ecological maps, game-like exploration or mythic spirals 2) Cultural-political stance reveals how power relations, marginalisation, queerness or refugee experience are woven into the work 3) Nature-technology ontology asks whether nature functions as a model, collaborator or metaphor for algorithmic processes, often via fractals, cellular automata or organic growth patterns 4) Process vs. product orientation distinguishes works that foreground a living, unfinished process from those that aim at a fixed final artifact. 5) Inter-disciplinary integration tracks the media mix (e.g. graphics, VR, motion capture, brain-computer interfaces) used to realise the score. 6) Community & collective agency looks at how performers, audience and code are positioned as co-authors. Typical corpus evidence includes spiral journeys, “censoring lights,” mycelial graphics, mutable graphics, multimodal feedback and shared visual timelines.

On the macro level composers repeatedly deployed a journey metaphor (e.g. nautilus spirals, RPG maps or migratory corridors) to invite performers and listeners to navigate a self-generated topography of sound and image. Large immersive projections and spatialised atmospheres were treated as active co-creators, continuously reshaping narrative. Bio-inspired structures such as fractals, cellular automata and mycelial growth provided organic patterns that echo natural self-organisation. Socio-political threads (including censorship, refugee displacement, feminist and neuro-diverse perspectives and queer temporality) embedded political resistance within the fabric of the work. Post-humanist stances elevate AI, robotics and virtual agents to hybrid performers, dissolving the human-centred authorial model.

On the micro side, improvisation was balanced with structure, allowing spontaneity without abandoning form. Inter-disciplinary multimedia fuses graphic scores, motion capture, VR, BCI and live-coding, creating a synesthetic map read as a single system. Human imperfection and gestural nuance were valued over sterile precision, foregrounding the body as a source of meaning. Collective agency distributed authorship across ensemble, audience and code, while a process-oriented, non-definitive stance rejected climactic narratives in favour of endless, rule-based play. Finally, accessibility was pursued through neuro-diverse entry points and user-friendly designs that invited non-musicians to participate.

Sub-field analysis

These are the main themes that emerged from the DigiScore corpus analysis (labelled ME1-ME11). The analysis is split into these two domains with key themes expanded upon for each.

Macro-level (World-views, Social-Political Context)

The macro-level domain examined the broader cultural, historical and inter-textual context of the work (e.g. references to earlier pieces, stylistic lineages, identity politics). The key themes are:

Key themes. • ME1 - Journey as a Unifying Metaphor: Several works adopted metaphorical themes such as the “nautilus” spiral, role-playing-game maps and migratory routes as visual-aural signifiers of travel, suggesting that the music was a voyage through layered spaces. Furthermore, the musicians’ responses explicitly framed these artistic creations as a metaphorical journey. In this way, by aligning compositional structures with the geometry of, say, a nautilus, the piece invites performers and listeners alike to navigate a self-generated topography of sound and image. • ME2 - Environment as Co-Creator: Many pieces used large-scale projections, immersive soundscapes and spatialized atmospheres and treated them as active participants rather than mere backdrops. Consequently, the surrounding space became a generative partner that continuously modulated the unfolding narrative while delivering a political message. • ME3 - Organic / Natural Patterns: Several pieces used formal decisions that were guided by bio-inspired structures such as fractals, cellular automata and mycelial growth. For them this allowed the composition to echo processes of self-organization and emergence found in the natural world. • ME4 - Resistance, Marginalisation & Queer Temporality: a handful of DigiScore pieces explicitly embedded socio-political themes at the core of the works. Themes of censorship, refugee displacement, feminist and neuro-diverse perspectives and non-linear queer temporality, for example, were woven into the fabric of the work to challenge dominant hegemonies. This enabled the musicians to foreground alternative histories and affective registers that destabilised conventional chronological and ideological orders and use music as a vehicle with which to express and share this. • ME5 - Post-Human / Hybrid Agency: Artificial intelligence, robotics and virtual agents were elevated to the status of performers, reflecting a post-humanist stance. The hybrid agency of these non-biological actors dissolved the boundary between human composer/performer and machine, reconfiguring the locus of authorship and agency.

Micro-level (Artistic, Aesthetic, Cultural Beliefs)

The micro-level domain examined the specific artistic-cultural beliefs that govern the work’s interaction logic (e.g. “the score must be inclusive”, “the system should behave like an ecosystem”). The key themes are:

Key themes.

• ME6 - Improvisation Balanced with Structure: Freedom was not left to chance alone; it was framed by mutable modules, weighted randomness and “time-out” hand cues that gave performers a scaffold. This duality let spontaneous gestures co-exist as an artistic thread with a referential architecture, producing moments of unexpected unity without dissolving the underlying form. • ME7 - Inter-disciplinarity & Multimedia: Graphic scores, motion-capture data, virtual-reality immersions, brain-computer-interface streams and live-coding patches intertwined in many scores erasing traditional genre boundaries as a core aesthetic intention. Combining graphic scores, interactive visuals, movement and sound into unified, multimedia experiences created a synesthetic dimension where visual, kinetic and sonic information were read as a single, integrated score. • ME8 - Human Imperfection & Gesture: Several score foregrounded the human’s idiosyncrasies as sources of meaning rather than sources of noise. For example, gestural nuance, “human error” and expressive variability were aesthetically valued over mechanistic precision. • ME9 - Collective Agency & Community: A mentionable number of scores were conceived as shared maps that distributed authorship across the ensemble. The aim here was generally to create a sense of shared ownership rather than a work from a single composer. This sentiment was reinforced through the functionality of the system as a framework for collective identity,” emphasizing that the work’s meaning emerges from a communal negotiation of signifiers through a shared journey. • ME10 - Process-Oriented, Non-Definitive Art: The form of many pieces rejected linear narratives of climax, beginning or end, instead favouring iterative repetition that never becomes identical. The impact was that through the process of realisation, the score positioning the composition as an endless game with rules but no goal states that evolved through each performance. • ME11 - Accessibility & Democratic Participation. A number of crucial case studies were deliberately designed to be readable by non-musicians, disabled musicians and musicians with neuro-diverse entry points in order to challenge and broaden participation. This intention was to ensure that the artistic environment did not privilege specialized training but invited a wide range of musicians into the creative process.

Cross-Domain Themes:

Across the two domains of macro and micro, several themes emerged that can be read as high-level thematic patterns for this Meta dimension. These are:

1. Narrative as navigation: “journey”, “map”, “exploration” terms appeared in many descriptions.
2. Algorithmic ecology: code mirrored natural systems (probabilistic growth, feedback loops, mycelial communication).
3. Co-creative agency: performer, audience, environment and algorithm were positioned as agents in a shared conversation.
4. Political empathy: refugee, gender, neuro-diversity and queer concerns shaped the aesthetic vocabulary, turning the work into a site of cultural resistance.
5. Fluid temporality: cyclical forms, non-linear time and “toporhythm” practices destabilised traditional musical time, aligning with political agendas such as queer temporality and post-humanist views.

Takeaways

The Meta dimension of the PACMMAN framework supplies the “why” behind many of the technical and aesthetic decisions and designs in digital musicking systems. This dimension can be used to articulate the cultural, philosophical and aesthetic motives that underlie every visual hue, algorithmic decision and interaction rule. It demonstrates how macro-level worldviews (such as narratives of journey, ecological awareness, or resistance) are instantiated through concrete design choices like colour palettes, probability tables and interface affordances. This can lead to an understanding of the intertwining of broader perspectives with detailed implementations. In this view the system transcends a purely technical artifact to become a cultural object, its architecture, visual language and interaction logic can be shaped by values concerning inclusion, post-humanism and the tension between process and product. Consequently, performers said they negotiate not only sounds but also the belief systems embedded in the work; an understanding of the Meta framework can equip them to make meaningfully situated choices rather than merely following cues. For researchers, Meta offers a cross-disciplinary lens that binds together the computational (Code), sensory (Physical Senses), agentic (Agents) and aesthetic strands of PACMMAN into a coherent cultural-philosophical narrative.