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Arts & Communication Speculative ubimus design

culture is imprinted upon each resource by incorporating authors . Expansive creativity frameworks may be enabled
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semantic meanings. These meanings are not arbitrary. by speculative ubimus design through the explorations
They are tied to the experiences acquired by handling the of musical experiences that are not deployable by means
musical resources. of current resources. A feature of ubimus frameworks —
that sets them apart from mainstream musical interaction
In summary, the three cases featured in this report — is a focus on expanding the access to music-making
unveil solutions and limitations that are relevant to while avoiding genre-specific designs. Genre-specificity is
musical interaction in post-2020 artistic practices, ingrained in programming languages, in data protocols,
featuring highly varied stakeholders (with and without and in popularized tools such as sequencers and score
musical training), involving settings that do not always editors. Therefore, a key emergent target of ubimus
have full-blown technological infrastructure (hence the research is esthetic pliability, that is, the ability to tackle
use of repurposed resources), and demanding intense a wide diversity of musical practices with an emphasis on
asynchronous exchanges which resist hierarchical and anticipatory features .
[5]
in-time management strategies.
Case 2 provides some insights on effective strategies
Case 3 showcases a ubimus initiative entailing the for implicit knowledge sharing that do not require strict
development of music-programming tools tailored for synchronization or usage of sonic information. Hence, they
casual usage by untrained subjects, lite coding. This point to a path toward handling crossmodal information
initiative is grounded on an emerging ubimus framework as a way to expand musical knowledge-sharing. This path
that fosters the application of CT. Our speculative- is aligned with the proposal laid out by Keller et al. of
[36]
design investigation indicated three potential targets for scaffolding ubimus designs on multimodal information
development: abstractions, distributed uncategorized rather than on sound. This might be interpreted as a
resources, and expansive creativity frameworks. As subtle difference but the Ouija model showcases the
exemplified by the discussion on presets, abstractions multiple implications of understanding music-making as a
are not just simplified resources (typically featured in multimodal phenomenon instead of restricting it to sound-
electronic keyboards as buttons that trigger automated making. This also implies a difference with proposals that
accompaniments and other packaged functionalities). target internet infrastructure tailored for sounds, scores,
They entail the incorporation of implicit knowledge or instrumental musical genres. A key motivation of the
which may demand actual musical experience or detailed ubimus community is to foster open sharing rather than
enforcing claims on ownership, territory, or exclusive
demonstrations of the elements used to generate these rights to resources. Thus, ubimus frameworks feature a
abstractions. Knowing what to abstract and what to non-rivalrous approach to the expansion of the musical
encapsulate is a key requirement of speculative ubimus internet.
design. Approaches that may be applied in lite coding
include flexible representations of temporalities (in the The discussion of consensus by sifting triggered by Case
form of crossmodal and analog representations, such as 1 illustrates the usage of speculative ubimus design as a
multimodal distributions not necessarily based on the tool for improving the generalization of results in ubimus
metric system), composite and generative pitch-based research. Given the exploratory or “patchy” strategies of the
entities (featuring a low number of parameters that render first wave of ubimus initiatives, frameworks that are easy to
meaningful composites, such as pitch aggregates that are apply to diverse settings and contexts have better chances
not necessarily aligned with tonal harmonies), and timbral to be validated as opposed to approaches that are tied to
specific infrastructure or specialized resources. This move
entities that may incorporate relational properties rather toward better deployability is reflected in the avoidance of
than any imposed acoustic-instrumental molds (one the idiosyncratic choices fostered by mainstream musical
example is banging interaction). Distributed uncategorized interaction, such as “laptop orchestras,” “intelligent
[13]
resources are possibly the most conflictive target of instruments,” and the multiple device-oriented gadgets
corporate greed of the past few years. These include not that have been marketed as universal musical solutions
only the intended products of artistic activities (such as (e.g., Guitar Hero, Smule, etc.). Future speculative ubimus
the digital assets aimed by the marketing campaign of
Non-Fungible Tokens — see Messina et al. (2022) for a 13 The discussion of the ethical implications of the usage by
[7]
critical discussion) but they also encompass the multiple corporations of assets created and maintained by open-
community-oriented repositories of resources that are source communities and by selfless artists is beyond the
now explored for commercial purposes by large-language scope of this paper. Please see Messina et al. for a ubimus
[7]
models, without acknowledgment or compensation to perspective on this topic.

Volume 1 Issue 2 (2023) 13 https://doi.org/10.36922/ac.1597