IoMUT · The Internet of Musical Things - An ecosystem of interoperable devices connecting performers and audiences

The Internet of Musical Things - An ecosystem of interoperable devices connecting performers and audiences

This project dealt with the design, development, and evaluation of novel interfaces for technologically-mediated interaction between performers and between performers audience members in order to achieve novel forms of musical expression and foster audience engagement in live performing arts. Current systems for networked music performance (that allow performers to collaboratively create music over a network) and for participatory live music performance (that enable audiences to actively engage in the music creation process) present several limitations in terms of interfaces for audience-performer interaction and interoperability. To progress the state-of-the-art, the approach followed in this project has been to extend the concepts of the Internet of Things to the musical domain. Specifically, this project investigated the foundations of a novel research area, the Internet of Musical Things (IoMusT). The IoMusT has been defined as the network of physical/virtual objects (Musical Things) dedicated to the production and consumption of multimodal musical content. This emerging research field is positioned at the intersection of different lines of existing research, including the Internet of Things, networked music performances, artificial intelligence, and technology-mediated audience participation. The project was structured around two interdependent objectives. The first objective consisted in investigating and developing new fundamental methods for co-located and remote interconnection of performers and audiences. The second objective concerned the exploration and empirical studies of new networked and participatory musical forms exploiting the developed methods. The results obtained during the project demonstrate the achievement of such objectives: various audience-performer musical interfaces were created; methods to interconnect different Musical Things were devised; ecosystems were formed around the developed technologies, which led to novel forms of musical interactions between performers and between performers and audience members. The adopted approach aspired to effect a step-change in the design of interfaces for musical expression, which has the potential to result in a high economic impact on the whole music industry. The project also contributed to the understanding of the mechanisms underlying music perception and music performance in interactive and multimodal contexts.

Data: CORDIS, © European Union