Organised Sound has until now been principally concerned with the audio arts. However, we live in a rapidly changing world; in particular, given the relentless evolution of competent technology in the form of multimedia PCs, new rendering technologies and standardised distributive media such as the web and MPEG, it seems timely to explore the relationship between the audio and visual spheres in the digital arts.

Once upon a time there was a computer music system called GROOVE (Generating Realtime Operations On Voltage-controlled Equipment, Bell Telephone Laboratories, Murray Hill, New Jersey) which outputted in the realm of sound, and was a wonderful and still-unique tool for the composition thereof. At that time a then-young composer who was using GROOVE for music got the harebrained idea that if she made a few minor changes here and there she could use it to compose images as well. This she did in 1974-6, and though the untimely demise of the system prevented creation of much documentation in the form of aesthetic works of its output, the system did function sufficiently to make some description worthwhile. While it is true that the mid-1960s DDP-224 computer on which GROOVE became a VAMPIRE (Video And Music Program for Interactive Realtime Exploration/Experimentation) was a massive room-sized computer, it has by now long been eclipsed in power by the constantly improving home computer. It is worth describing the concepts involved in part because there are by now many small computers capable of emulating its musical methods. Besides, I had a deep personal relationship with that computer, and wish to commemorate it. Here then follows the tale of Graphical GROOVE, aka the VAMPIRE.

Electroacoustic music, since its inception, has been situated in a cross-disciplinary no-man's-land, with areas of interest spread in many directions; from ideas of musical structures ordered through traditional pitch-classes to research on physical modelling and analysis of sound and compositional structures through the use of neural networks. Much of the material found in computer music has been developed through processes of appropriation, both from sound recordings of physical events and from the application of various principles found in the natural sciences.

The challenge of composing both sound and moving image within a coherent computer-mediated framework is addressed, and some of the aesthetic issues highlighted. A conceptual model for an audiovisual delivery system is proposed, and this model acts as a guide for detailed discussion of some illustrative examples of audiovisual composition. Options for types of score generated as graphical output of the system are outlined. The need for extensive algorithmic control of compositional decisions within an interactive framework is proposed. The combination of Tabula Vigilans Audio Interactive (TVAI), an algorithmic composition language for electroacoustic music and realtime image generation, with MIDAS, a multiprocessor audiovisual system platform, is shown to have the features desired for the conceptual outline given earlier, and examples are given of work achieved using these resources. It is shown that ultimately delivery of new work may be efficiently distributed via the World Wide Web, with composers' interactive scripts delivered remotely but rendered locally by means of a user's ‘rendering black box’.

The ‘art’ we produce today attempts to incorporate an increasing level of computer technology. There are many reasons for this trend, the most significant being a thirst for an exploration of the ‘new’, and the desire to parallel the increasing level of technology seeping into everyday life. However, when surveying recent developments we find an array of technology-related arts projects that instead of reaching forward into the previously unknown, often reproduce the past simply in a digital form, designed to appeal to our immediate senses but lacking in depth and substance. Likewise, it can be observed that in many cultures (ancient and modern), mimesis grows out of what seems to be a human reaction to technological change. Qualities familiar from past usage tend to be reproduced in new materials and with new techniques, regardless of appropriateness. This may have religious origins, or simply result from inertia, reworking concepts within the current paradigm. Parallels can be drawn from evolution, which can be observed to progress in a series of large advancements alternating with periods of extremely slow or zero development (Eldredge and Gould 1972), and from the progress of science, which seems to be similarly stepped (Kuhn 1962).

This paper describes Mimetric Dynamics – an audiovisual interactive installation exploring one of the many possible relationships between nature and technology. In this work, real and simulated fluid dynamics are presented simultaneously, allowing both artist and viewer to explore the relationship between ‘digital’ and ‘analogue’ media in both sound and visual dimensions. It gains insight from physical laws and time flows derived from the natural world, where digital technology is used to produce mathematical models simulating real physical attributes. In doing so we are able to harness qualities of the ‘natural’ and use their characteristics to control aspects of the ‘artificial’ (virtual).

Visual rendering is the process of creating synthetic images of digital models. The modelling of sound synthesis and propagation in a virtual space is called sound rendering. In this article we review different audiovisual rendering techniques suitable for realtime rendering of three-dimensional virtual worlds. Virtual environments are useful in various application areas, for example in architectural visualisation. With audiovisual rendering, lighting and acoustics of a modelled concert hall can be experienced early in the design stage of the building. In this article we demonstrate an interactive audiovisual rendering system where an animated virtual orchestra plays in a modelled concert hall. Virtual musicians are conducted by a real conductor who wears a wired data dress suit and a baton. The conductor and the audience hear the music rendered according to the acoustics of the virtual concert hall, creating a lifelike experience.

Requiem per una veu perduda (Requiem for a lost voice in Catalan) is a piece for mezzo-soprano with on-stage effects processing and recorded electroacoustic material. The electroacoustic material consists mainly of synthesised vocal sounds and the pitches for the mezzo-soprano part were defined based upon the functioning of the speech synthesis methods used. This paper outlines the basics of one of the speech synthesis methods used to compose the piece and introduces the scheme for the definition of the pitch material for the singing. The relationship between the speech synthesis methods and the pitch material establishes the structural foundations of the piece.

Complete Listings for Volume 3