Collective Embodiment (2019)

For a moving musician (sax), one cognitive agent, sensors, real-time score generation, live electronics, live notation, and small electronic devices.

“Collective embodiment” was accepted and premiered at the ICMC 20024 conference in Seoul. Steven Leffue played the tenor saxophone at the 2024 ICMC Conference. One year later, at the Bled Contemporary Music Week 2025, Weronika Partyka created a new version for alto saxophone.

Bled version 2025. Weronika Partyka playing alto sax, Bled musical week 2025

This work is conceived as a musical collaborative game between a musician and a Cognitive Agent. The musician and the cognitive agent react to each other by turns. Their position is fed to a generative system that generates the electronic sounds and notes the musician will play.

Steven Leffue premiering “Collective Embodiment” In Seoul

This work explores the idea of machine-human interaction. To do so, in this work, a musician and a cognitive agent create a collaborative embodiment that creates a collaborative intelligence. This is an algorithm-driven piece with a sound result that cannot be predicted by the composer himself/herself. This work forms part of the research about new forms of computational creativity based on collaborative intelligence.
The musician moves around the stage, and his/her movement is monitored by sensors and sent to Max/MSP. Inside the patch, a cognitive agent will do the same virtually.

Seoul version 2024. Steven Leffue playing tenor sax, Seoul ICMC 2024


The musician and the virtual musician are told they are participating in a game in which they compete to create music. So, they must use their intelligence to move in a way that benefits their part.
The agent’s virtual position and the musician’s real position will feed four bots, changing the repetition time of the patterns that will be determined by the agent’s and the musician’s positions. One of the bots will send the notes made by this process to the musician, who will receive them on his/her mobile device. The other three bots will feed a synthesis motor to create real-time electronic sounds.

Scheme of the work
Complete Setup.

In this picture, you can see how the musician receives the notes in the live notation system.

Weronika Partyka rehearsing the work with the sensor, the wireless mic, and the iPad for live notation

References

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