Frontiers: Expanding Musical Imagination With Audience Participation

Abstract

This paper introduces Performance Without Borders and Embodied iSound, two sound installations performed at the 2016 Peninsula Arts Contemporary Music Festival at Plymouth University. Sharing in common the use of smartphones to afford real-time audience participation, two bespoke distributed computer systems (Sherwell and Levinsky Music, respectively). Whilst the first one implements a cloud-based voting system, the second implements movement tracking and iBeacon-based indoor-positioning to control the choice of soundtracks, audio synthesis, and surround sound positioning, among other parameters. The general concepts of the installations, in particular design and interactive possibilities afforded by the computer systems are presented.