Towards a Machine Somaesthete: Latent Modeling of EMG Signals in Viola Playing

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Strauss, Lucy and Yee-King, Matthew. 2024. 'Towards a Machine Somaesthete: Latent Modeling of EMG Signals in Viola Playing'. In: 9th International Conference on Movement and Computing (MOCO '24). Utrecht, Netherlands 30 May - 2 June 2024. [Conference or Workshop Item]

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Official URL: https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/3658852.3659074

Abstract or Description

Somaesthetic experiential qualities can provide a window into process of meaning-making, both human and machinic. We draw such qualities from viola performance into the design-in-progress of a novel interactive performance system. In doing so, we introduce the concept of a Machine Somaesthete that senses and makes sense of these qualities from a second-person perspective. Our system comprises electromyographic (EMG) muscle sensing and a Variational Autoencoder. With a novel dataset, we aim to encode latent representations of performance movement that are meaningful from a somaesthetic perspective. We present our model and our design process, then analyse latent trajectories to interrogate how our system can be considered a Machine Somaesthete, and the nature of its sensitivity to bodily experiences of viola playing. At the intersection of artificial intelligence, music performance and intra-action design, we take a sympoietic (together-making) view of knowledge creation. We and our practices are transformed as we design - and design with - machine learning systems.

Item Type:

Conference or Workshop Item (Paper)

Identification Number (DOI):

https://doi.org/10.1145/3658852.3659074

Additional Information:

Funding: This research is supported by the Arts and Humanities Research Council of the United Kingdom and the Consortium for the Humanities and the Arts South-East England.

Keywords:

Soma-design, Latent Modelling, Machine Learning, Sympoiesis, Machine Somaesthete, Interactive Music Systems

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