Extracting Human Expression For Interactive Composition with the Augmented Violin

As a 2010 Artist in Residence in Musical Research at IRCAM, Mari Kimura used the Augmented Violin to develop new compositional approaches, and new ways of creating interactive performances [1]. She contributed her empirical and historical knowledge of violin bowing technique, working with the Real Time Musical Interactions Team at IRCAM. Thanks to this residency, her ongoing long-distance collaboration with the team since 2007 dramatically accelerated, and led to solving several compositional and calibration issues of the Gesture Follower (GF) [2]. Kimura was also the first artist to develop projects between the two teams at IRCAM, using OMAX (Musical Representation Team) with GF. In the past year, the performance with Augmented Violin has been expanded in larger scale interactive audio/visual projects as well. In this paper, we report on the various techniques developed for the Augmented Violin and compositions by Kimura using them, offering specific examples and scores.