Visualising co-agency and aiding legibility of sonic gestures for performers and audiences of multiplayer digital improvisation with UniSSON (Unity Supercollider Sound Object Notation)

This paper addresses interdisciplinary research into action, agency, aura and spectacle in electronic music performance, with a specific focus on small improvising ensembles. The aims of this research were to develop a framework for graphical representations of multiplayer sonic/musical interactions in performance by exploring data visualization and machine listening of shared musical gestures in performance. The main output from this research is UniSSON, a suite of software tools that presents a real-time multi-temporal and multi-resolution view of sonic data across a number of sound-based parameters in accessible ways, which contributes to audience engagement and collaborative performance. The research builds on existing strands of work in creative computing, computer music and musicology but seeks to make newly playful use of these techniques whilst also addressing accessibility issues by working with both widely adopted and open source software.