Type: Creative System are composite constructions of pre-defined audio, dynamic visual information and sound processing, all controlled and coordinated through a central computer environment.

About

Point Line Piano is an interactive VR project merging drawing and music, creating a vibrant, multisensory environment. Users draw points and lines in VR, activating musical notes and creating complex visuals. The project aims to stimulate multi-sensory creativity and foster a connection with abstraction. It transforms creativity by integrating composing, performing, and viewing into one experience, allowing everyone to be a composer, performer, and viewer. It supports inclusive music-making, welcoming diverse participants, and plans to become more accessible in the future.

Documentation trailer: https://vimeo.com/938043123/de174aa245?share=copy

Further details

Analysis (using the 7 modalities - LINK)

Interface Object

The music idea embedded in Point Line Piano is communicated through the visual sense in the 3-D space of a VR headset. The presence of the user in this immersive VR space is also a strong communicator, with the hearing sense following closely behind.

Material Affect

The visual design in 3D space is primarily responsible for the affectual connections with the musician. The intricate beauty of the lines and interconnections in this space reaches out and draws in relationships through the following aspects, and in doing so shifts the “sense ratios” and “patterns of perception steadily and without any resistance” (McLuhan, 1964):

  • the simultaneous simplicity of the line drawn with the complexity of the algorithmic processes that treat the drawn line in diferent ways depending on the ‘mode’ of the level
  • the emergent algorithmic behaviours animated from the drawn lines
  • the piano realisation, and the hidden presence/ aesthetics of the composer
  • the black void of VR space as a metaphor for unbounded creativity
  • the hand-help controllers of the VR tech

Goal

The goal of this digital score is to play make lines in 3D VR space, and for this to be rendered by a virtual pianist. These lines can be manipulated by the user, and will be manipulated by the algorithmic composer which is visualised in realtime. This feels like a collaborative play.

Content

The primary signals that convey meaning are the drawn and generated lines in 3D VR space.

Language

The language of this digital score in Point Line Piano are sensory, but use iconic imagery of lines to suggest musical interconnectivity and the language of music. The primary sensorial signals are the paths that are drawn by the user as a line in 3D space. The user (a hybrid of performer and composer roles) can then manipulate these moving them further around the 3D and musical space.

Feedback

Once the drawn line has been scribed in 3D VR space, the animation and processing takes over. This is the feedback to the use of both their line and the current settings of the algorithm.

Flow

Flow in Point Line Piano operates as collaboration between the user and the code, both of which have strong agency in the final outcome. The user first draws a line, but underneath this initial action is an algorithmic process that is waiting to be activated. Once the line has been drawn, both the code and the user then enters into a collaboration, which is more concurrent play than co-creative. This is because both are responding to, rather than initiating new ideas. This feels like a play around a theme and variation and therefore contained, controlled and understandable: only the materials of the lines and the algorithmic settings are in play. Together with the acutely symbiotic design of the visuals and their emergent responses, these materials offer the user (a hybrid of performer and composer roles) a cohesive focus that guides any user regardless of age, experience and musical aptitude into creative play.