Center of Creative Computation

Lambeosaurine hadrosaurs are duck-billed dinosaurs known for their large head crests, which researchers hypothesize were resonators for vocal calls. This paper describes the motivation and process of iteratively designing a musical instrument and interactive sound installation based on imagining the sounds of this extinct dinosaur. We used scientific research as a starting point to create a means of sound production and resonator, using a 3D model obtained from Computed Topology (CT) scans of a Corythosaurus skull and an endocast of its crest and nasal passages. Users give voice to the dinosaur by blowing into a mouthpiece, exciting a larynx mechanism and resonating the sound through the hadrosaur's full-scale nasal cavities and skull. This action allows an embodied glimpse into an ancient past. Users know the dinosaur through the controlled exhalation of their breath, how the compression of the lungs leads to a whisper or a roar.

Social partner dances, particularly Argentine tango with its close embrace, present challenges to interactive dance system development. First, the system must address the motion capture problem of multiple closely interacting bodies. Secondly, the system deployment should not disrupt the social dance conventions and expectations. Thirdly, the system must capture movement features relevant to the dance style. This paper presents and reflects upon the process of building such a system for interactive Argentine tango dance, in which dancers’ movements drive a real-time composition system, illuminating solutions to these limitations.

Musical participation has brought individuals together in on-going communities throughout human history, aiding in the kinds of social integration essential for wellbeing. The design of Digital Musical Instruments (DMIs), however, has generally been driven by idiosyncratic artistic concerns, Western art music and dance traditions of expert performance, and short-lived interactive art installations engaging a broader public of musical novices. These DMIs rarely engage with the problems of on-going use in musical communities with existing performance idioms, repertoire, and social codes with participants representing the full learning curve of musical skill, such as social dance. Our project, Interactive Tango Milonga, an interactive Argentine tango dance system for social dance addresses these challenges in order to innovate connection, the feeling of intense relation between dance partners, music, and the larger tango community.