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Arts & Communication Speculative ubimus design

Building on a decade of deployments, second-wave to be applied to musical interaction (cf. Gelassenheit
[11]
ubimus endeavors address some of the conceptual and and adaptability in Lazzarini et al., 2023 ).
[12]
methodological challenges that have been underlined by In this paper, we explore speculative design strategies for
the world-pandemic . Despite assigning centrality to post- post-2020 music-making that take into account the constraints
[4]
2020 music-making, second-wave ubimus frameworks and opportunities opened by recent changes in both musical
also engage with a reassessment of historically informed infrastructures and practices. Given a massive concentration
musical practices through an active exploration of legacy of technological assets by a few financial conglomerates
technologies within the context of ubimus archaeologies. and the ongoing attempts to monetize the internet-based
These investigations unveil how some preconceived common goods, music once again serves as a stage for
notions about music constrained the designs of the early social experiments that may impose pervasive and long-
computational tools. Inherited cultural biases shape the lasting restrictions to local communities and practitioners.
2
infrastructure, concepts, and policies underlying the Our discussion centers on ubiquitous music because this
development of current musical technology . movement vindicates the universal right to music-making as
[5]
3
Today, as we move toward an integrated composite a key goal of its research agenda . Despite this focus, we also
[1]
of digital representations and material resources, the engage with complementary trends to consider alternative
harsh reality of social exclusion (previously enforced by proposals within telematic art, networked music performance,
restrictive access to mainframe facilities) now takes the and the technologies for music notation and representation.
form of a corporate oligopoly of data resources and data- We acknowledge the transitional character of these labels and
capture infrastructure. We may be on a path to deepen stress the difficulties of establishing conceptual frameworks
the digital gap that separates the initiatives based on based on practices that rely on shifting and heterogeneous
commercially oriented infrastructure from the research technological infrastructure. In particular, rather than
grounded on peripheral and adaptive appropriations claiming the precedence, the intellectual ownership, or the
of non-rivalrous technological assets. The factors that territorial hegemony of any musical perspective, we question
1
determine the cultural and social sustainability of music the applicability of concepts tailored for genre-specific ends.
being made in the geographical and economic periphery A delicate aspect of our analysis is the brittleness or resilience
may either push toward a blind dependence on proprietary of the design targets which directly impact the “push and pull”
corporate infrastructure or they may prompt a dynamic of of ubimus infrastructures.
militant reliance on open common goods. This dilemma We present three deployments that encompass
is at the core of the “push and pull” strategies observed contrasting issues of ubimus research to highlight the
throughout the expansion of the ubimus movement. anticipatory potential of speculative-design investigations:
Rather than negotiations , the deployment of the Emugel prototype for lite coding; Ouija, an artwork
[8]
computational infrastructure embodies the impact of involving ecomprovisational methods; and InMesh, a
economic, political, and cultural pressures that either multimodal installation based on a collaborative design
select for or discard musical practices and resources. process carried out by means of asynchronous telematic
Consequently, proposals based on specific technical interactions. Two conceptual frameworks scaffold the three
4
features of equipment — for instance, temporal latency or prototypes: computational thinking (CT) and ecologically
variability — are prone to enforce the same limitations as grounded creative practice. Both approaches have been
“the note,” “the instrument,” “the orchestra,” and the various deployed and discussed by ubimus researchers [14-16] .
acoustic-instrumental notions that have been inherited Therefore, we will only include a short summary of their
from 19 century European music. Temporal latency and key features and methodological implications, while
th
variability are relevant to the artistic practices that rely on pointing to the relevant sources.
chamber music. Thus, they are similar fads as the 1960’s
and 1970’s claim that precision is the most important 2 A discussion of the processes underlying this move toward
contribution of computational infrastructure to music (cf. monetization of internet assets falls beyond the scope of
Keller et al., 2022 for a critical discussion of this issue). this paper. See the series of publications on the concept of
[5]
[7]
Tenney demonstrated that the impact of sonic variability 3 Internet of Musical Stuff .
[9]
We stress the difference between a universal right—a
is deeper and wider for music-making than precision or quality of music-making pertaining to all human beings—
control. It took over two decades of timbre research to and a universal trait—an unproven hypothesis of a set of
acknowledge his findings . The corollaries are still waiting characteristics shared across cultures.
[10]
4 Our usage of the word “telematics” implies infrastructure
1 For a discussion of psychoeconomic concepts such as rivalry for remote activities and is completely unrelated to genre-
and their relevance for ubimus frameworks, see [6,7] . oriented claims, such as Ascott’s “telematic art” .
[13]
Volume 1 Issue 2 (2023) 2 https://doi.org/10.36922/ac.1597