The Body Electric: A NIME designed through and with the somatic experience of singing

Abstract

This paper presents the soma design process of creating Body Electric: a novel interface for the capture and use of biofeedback signals and physiological changes generated in the body by breathing, during singing. This NIME design is grounded in the performer's experience of, and relationship to, their body and their voice. We show that NIME design using principles from soma design can offer creative opportunities in developing novel sensing mechanisms, which can in turn inform composition and further elicit curious engagements between performer and artefact, disrupting notions of performer-led control. As contributions, this work 1) offers an example of NIME design for situated living, feeling, performing bodies, and 2) presents the rich potential of soma design as a path for designing in this context.

Suspended Circles: Soma Designing a Musical Instrument

“…Soma design and somaesthetics have been used on occasions in contexts of musical practice [3,9,16,34], such as in the non-tangible interface DogDog by Bigoni and Erkut, where the first-person perspective is applied as a means to bridge musical improvisation and movement-interaction. Furthermore, without explicitly drawing from soma design, Alexander Refsum Jensenius, along with expert dancer-choreographer, Kari Anne Vadstensvik Bjerkestrand, engaged in a series of sessions of slowing down and standstill, taking notes of their subjective experiences, in order to explore micromovements.…”

Singing Knit: Soft Knit Biosensing for Augmenting Vocal Performances

“…Creating custom collars allows for individual differences, however subtle, to be taken into account and for the best possible fit to be achieved. Also, a prominent theme in vocal wearables, is the exploration of the connection of the singer to their body and their body perception [5,6,67,82]. Therefore, achieving a "one-size-fits-all" collar might not be desireable, in fact it might negatively impact this theme, in masking the breadth of human body-diversity [71].…”

Examining Embodied Sensation and Perception in Singing

“…To the vocalist, their voice is largely present in sensations occurring within their own body [51,61]. Understanding the rich internal connection with the voice can provide insight into how we understand our own bodies, particularly as we engage in well-defined interaction learned over long periods of time [14,96]. Through exploration of the voice, I aim to address larger questions present in HCI of how perception is shaped through experience, and we can communicate sensory-based interaction and practice between different bodies.…”