Live performance proposal submitted to ICLC 2027 on 15 August 2026. If accepted, performed in Antwerp, March 2027. Collaboration: myself on Unity, Dennis on Max/MSP.
The chain
gamepad → Unity → OSC over UDP → Max/MSP → spatial audio + image
The performer holds nothing but a game controller. Everything else is a consequence of moving through a virtual space.
Three mapping principles
- Architecture determines reverb — collision volumes select reverb presets.
- Vegetation determines tempo — the sway of hanging growth drives BPM.
- Gaze determines harmony — where you look selects the chord bank.
Position drives panning throughout.
What it is for, in the research
This is where the signal runs the other way: not instrument → engine, but controller → engine → sound. It is the clearest statement of the position that separates this work from GAPPP and from NIME.
What claiming a theory revealed
Running meaningful play over a single pass through Phosphor exposed a problem I had not seen: only architecture → reverb is self-evident. The other two principles have to leak somehow or they are not readable as rules — which is exactly the failure Lüneburg reports from GAPPP’s open-world experiments.
It also exposed something larger. Agency here belongs to the performer, but meaningful play has to hold for an audience holding nothing. That is the crack the thesis is growing out of.
Next
Prototype work at ZHdK Immersive Arts Space, autumn 2026 — the research-through-design component, and the first opportunity to put this in front of an audience and ask.