University of Maine
Arts & Humanities
This paper documents the initial prototyping of a new digital musical instrument. Specifically, it focuses on design of the interface, and contextualizes the project through some of the existing research in the field of gestural control... more
This paper documents the initial prototyping of a new digital musical instrument. Specifically, it focuses on design of the interface, and contextualizes the project through some of the existing research in the field of gestural control of new musical instruments. The project began with a concept for a stand-alone hand-held polyphonic synthesizer called the Noisebox (Figure 1). Several key concepts and strategies were explored and implemented during its development, including: analysis and application of gesture in musical performance, choice of sensors and sensor conditioning, appropriate mapping strategies , and evaluation of user experience. The outcome yielded a functional prototype that fulfilled the initial goal of the project to design and build a working instrument from start to finish. The stage documented here represents the first phase of a longer project. Future phases will conduct user tests to measure the success of the instrument based on performer feedback and refine the design through multiple iterations, leading to a finished instrument.
About five years ago, I had the privilege of working over a two-year period on a project at Grand Arts called DeepTime RapidTime. 1 It was at this time that I first sensed that many of us involved in the arts—both at Grand Arts and... more
About five years ago, I had the privilege of working over a two-year period on a project at Grand Arts called DeepTime RapidTime. 1 It was at this time that I first sensed that many of us involved in the arts—both at Grand Arts and elsewhere—were reconceptualizing the status of art. Something was very different. It was not the usual debate about expanding the definitions of art (art into life and so on); it was, ironically, the opposite: artists wishing to limit the expanding definition of art. Artists wishing to be done with art. There was an urgency to step outside of art, not for the sake of shifting art into an alliance with another existing discipline, but for the sake of scrapping the existing realm of the aesthetic. What was being reconsidered was not solely art (as if it could still be thought of as a standalone endeavor) but also the entire project of Western metaphysics and all its neat dualisms: Nature + Culture, Subject + Object, Human + Non-Human, Fact + Value, Art + Science, and so forth. The pressing and unavoidable question that seemed to be on all of our minds was: If these interwoven logics, in which art plays a critical role, are no longer justifiable, then are the procedures that comprise art worth adhering to even as everything else is being critically rethought? Can we really be " after Nature " and " after Culture " but not " after Art " ? Giving art a free pass no longer seemed viable or interesting. To be clear, this was not a continuation of the Post-Modern desire to critique all metaphysics and then ultimately be done with metaphysics. Rather, what I could sense emerging at Grand Arts and elsewhere was an experimental curiosity to begin an adventure to co-evolve a new metaphysics after art.
Making is thinking1. This is a much more radical claim than it might seem at first glance. It is not that making is simply critical to thinking (which is true), for to phrase it in this manner is to see making and thinking as two separate... more
Making is thinking1. This is a much more radical claim than
it might seem at first glance. It is not that making is simply
critical to thinking (which is true), for to phrase it in this
manner is to see making and thinking as two separate activities.
The claim Making is Thinking argues for something
more fundamental—that the very act of making is a form of
thinking.
it might seem at first glance. It is not that making is simply
critical to thinking (which is true), for to phrase it in this
manner is to see making and thinking as two separate activities.
The claim Making is Thinking argues for something
more fundamental—that the very act of making is a form of
thinking.
- by Iain Kerr and +1
- •
- Design, Creativity, Design Innovation, Enactivism
These speculative notes are part of SPURSE'S project EAT YOUR SIDEWALK -- a project to transform how we inhabit our urban environments, understand eating and cooking, and utilize foraging as a technique for multi-species commons building.... more
These speculative notes are part of SPURSE'S project EAT YOUR SIDEWALK -- a project to transform how we inhabit our urban environments, understand eating and cooking, and utilize foraging as a technique for multi-species commons building. This document was prepared as working notes for a workshop we participated in at the Culinary Institute of America in the spring of 2018. We further utilized this in preparation for talking with Alison Waters, and as part of a public discussion, we had with the great chef Peter Hofmann on “Does Sidewalk-to-Table come after Farm-to-Table?” at William Patterson University. The focus on art, recipes, and restaurants is in part because of these contexts. It is, like much of our writing, a living and speculative document, we would love to hear your thoughts.
- by Iain Kerr and +2
- •
- Aesthetics, Foodways (Anthropology), Gastronomy, Commons
A rethinking of Creativity, Invention and Innovation.
An overview of SPURSE project to design a Multi-Species Landscape @ Pitzer College (2013-14). The text was written as chapter for: Art as Social Action: An Introduction to the Principles and Practices of Teaching Social Practice Art (2018)
- by Iain Kerr and +1
- •
- Landscape Ecology, Art Theory, Commons, Contemporary Art
In November 2003 nearly 150 poets, writers, geographers, musicologists, literary critics, and historians of all fields—from agriculture and architecture to women and immigration—gathered in Lincoln, Nebraska, at a national conference of... more
In November 2003 nearly 150 poets, writers, geographers, musicologists, literary critics, and historians of all fields—from agriculture and architecture to women and immigration—gathered in Lincoln, Nebraska, at a national conference of the Consortium of Regional Humanities Centers to explore the general theme of “Regionalism and the Humanities.” The papers in this volume reflect the general perception shared by most of the humanists at the conference: in a modern world increasingly homogenized and standardized by the forces of globalization, the regionalist impulse is still very much alive. Once viewed as a reaction against the forces of modernism, it has emerged in a globalized world as a repackaged, more-aggressive endeavor to make a claim for the role of place and space—as opposed to gender, race, ethnicity, class, demography, or other cultural or physical distinctions— in the effort to understand ourselves and what it means to be human. What distinguishes regionalism from these other efforts at self-understanding is its focus on locating oneself in the space lived in, inhabited, made home, or traveled through. This emphasis is itself rooted in man’s fundamental interaction with nature: the land, climate, flora and fauna, and the physical environment.
- by Neksi Kola and +1
- •
- Humanities, Regionalism
Video of individuals named as Outstanding Students in the graduating Class of 2021