‘Sound is the interface’: from interactive to ecosystemic signal processing

Abstract

This paper takes a systemic perspective on interactive signal processing and introduces the author's Audible Eco-Systemic Interface (AESI) project. It starts with a discussion of the paradigm of ‘interaction’ in existing computer music and live electronics approaches, and develops following bio-cybernetic principles such as ‘system/ambience coupling’, ‘noise’, and ‘self-organisation’. Central to the paper is an understanding of ‘interaction’ as a network of interdependencies among system components, and as a means for dynamical behaviour to emerge upon the contact of an autonomous system (e.g. a DSP unit) with the external environment (room or else hosting the performance). The author describes the design philosophy in his current work with the AESI (whose DSP component was implemented as a signal patch in KYMA5.2), touching on compositional implications (not only live electronics situations, but also sound installations).