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Arts & Communication Speculative ubimus design

Example 3. Emugel. Despite falling beyond the scope of speculative ubimus
design, these are very important research questions.
Refer to Supplementary Video
Lite-coding research aims to identify the requirements
and strategies that simplify interacting with code.
5. Speculative ubimus futures A particularly tricky aspect is the tendency of designers
Developing systematic, compelling accouviable of computational protocols to rely on domain-specific
alternatives to existing social structures and knowledge. A widespread misconception is that music is
institutions of power and privilege, therefore, a language. There are of course some parallels between
is one component of the social process through spoken and written languages and music-making. However,
which the social limits on achievable alternatives equating the multimodal and materially grounded
can themselves be changed . processes that take place during musical activities to a
[56]
sequence of written tokens misses the cognitive, material,
If speculative ubimus design is defined as a strategy to and social dimensions that enable unique musical
conceptualize musical alternatives that are not feasible, experiences. A key strategy for sharing musical experiences
given current social expectations, but that may become is the reliance on implicit knowledge. Thus, the expansion
achievable through cognitive and social engineering, then of music-programming languages may involve supporting
the desired outcomes encompass both the new scenarios diverse forms of material and social interaction, while
and the basic requirements that enable speculative remaining sufficiently pliable for handling both material
exercises. The advantage of using field cases as points of and intangible resources.
departure for thought experiments is that the deployments
can take the form of adaptations of tested experimental This suggests that simplicity may be an extremely rare
procedures. Consider, for instance, the ecomprovisational quality of programming systems that yield meaningful
[56]
approach applied in Ouija. Musical esthetics that rely on musical outcomes (cf. the concept of terseness ). A case in
fixed resources, such as distributed scores or techniques point is the popular use of presets as clutches for resource
based on score-following, pitch-tracking, and similar selection. If presets are understood as abstractions of
event-based procedures might be supported by Type 1 or long chains of esthetic decision-making, they may feature
Type 2 guidelines. Type 3 guidelines are better aligned with implicit musical knowledge, hence becoming useful tools
volatile resources and flexible temporalities; consequently, to streamline creative processes. Nevertheless, most presets
the application of ASC-based metaphors may be preferable are delivered as black boxes without documentation of
[40]
for these cases . the design procedures or the esthetic grounding that led
to the sonic products. In ubimus terms, lacking access to
The deployment of simplified techniques for music- procedural knowledge means reducing esthetic pliability.
programming has been boosted by the availability of Hence, presets as black-boxes tend to limit the creative
prototyping tools for various platforms. This tendency outcomes.
was neither obvious nor actively supported until the
second decade of this century. There were several issues How do we turn presets as black boxes into presets
that discouraged the early attempts: (i) limited support as abstractions? One strategy involves the use of ASC.
for browser-based audio; (ii) heterogeneous and mostly ASC can be described as a process of chaining semantic
proprietary operating systems and tools for mobile tokens and creative resources. Note that we propose
platforms; and (iii) lack of musical frameworks centered chaining rather than mapping. Mapping implies linking
on untrained stakeholders. As stated by several researchers arbitrary categories which can be reconfigured at will.
that did not participate in the first cycle of ubimus This goes against the grain of ecological thinking.
initiatives, item 3 has been changed by ubimus practice. Relational properties emerge through ongoing and
Ubimus has also fostered various proposals that were later mutual adjustments among stakeholders and resources.
incorporated i and ii by mainstream musical-interaction Hence, they furnish a stable set of properties that are
research. Second-wave ubimus encompasses various tied both to the resources’ genealogy and to the history
threads with promising applications in interaction design, of interactions situated within an ecological niche. When
creativity studies, and digital humanities [23,25,32] . How the these interactions are enabled through semantic tokens,
ecological and the computational-thinking frameworks will a chaining process emerges furnishing stable meanings
fare when applied to this interdisciplinary dialog is still an for the resources and thus increasing the resilience of the
open question. There are multiple methodological barriers relational properties. Applying these concepts to presets
that demand field deployments and careful analysis of the involves using semantic tokens that express the material
creative outcomes to verify the validity of these proposals. characteristics of the resources. In other words, the local

Volume 1 Issue 2 (2023) 12 https://doi.org/10.36922/ac.1597