With The Vocal Chorder, a large interactive instrument to create accompaniment, opera singers can get more power over the performance. The device allows performers to interactively accompany themselves through pushing, leaning on and bending steel wires. The design was guided by the unique needs of the solo-singer, explored through autobiographical design and material explorations, some on stage, and later tested by other singers. We discuss how designing for opera and for the stage requires extraordinary durability and how opera performances can change with a bodilyoriented instrument such as The Vocal Chorder. Through a designerly exploration, we arrived at a device that offered (1) a tool for singers to take control over the rhythmical pace and overall artistic and aesthetic outcome of their performances, (2) an enriched sense of embodiment between their voice and the overall performance; and (3) a means to empower opera singers on stage.

With The Vocal Chorder, a large interactive instrument to create accompaniment, opera singers can get more power over the performance. The device allows performers to interactively accompany themselves through pushing, leaning on, and bending steel wires. The design was guided by the unique needs of the solo-singer, explored through autobiographical design and material explorations on stage, and later tested by other singers. Through our designerly exploration, we arrived at a device that offered (1) a tool for singers to appropriate and take control over the rhythmical pace and overall artistic and aesthetic outcome of their performances, (2) an enriched sense of embodiment between their voice and the overall performance; and (3) a means to empower opera singers on stage.

In the opera Sing the Body Electric! A Corporatorio, artists from the disciplines of opera, dance and the development of new musical instruments collaborated to create an onstage fusion of different technologies and artistic practices that connected performer, scenography and instrument. Gestures and movements of singers were captured by custom-built technologies. The singers also used custom-built technologies for transforming their vocal qualities and for creating synthesized accompaniment in real time. In this way the singers’ bodily musical processes further extended their vocal performances, rooted in operatic praxis, allowing for heightened expressivity and emergent scenic subjects.

Practitioner-led artistic research, combined with interactive technologies, opens up new and unexplored design spaces. Here we focus on the creation of a tool for opera-singers to dynamically disform, change and accompany their voices. In an opera composed by one of the authors, the title-role singer needed to be able to alter his voice to express hawking, coughing, snuffling and other disturbing vocal qualities associated with the lead role Joseph Merrick, aka "The Elephant Man". In our designerly exploration, we were guided by artistic experiences from the opera tradition and affordances of the technology at hand. The resulting instrument, The Throat III, is a singer-operated artefact that embodies and extends particular notions of operatic singing techniques while at the same time creating accompaniment. It therefore becomes an emancipatory tool, putting a spotlight on some of the power hierarchies between singers, composers, conductors, and stage directors in the operatic world.

Sensory Digital Intonation. The impact of artistic intuition and experience when fine-tuning digital artefacts. Throughout the artistic practice of the authors and their collaborative works (eg Artificial Body Voices, Robocygne, The Lamentations of Orpheus, The Crystal Cabinet, Olimpia, The Pearlfishers and Ombra Mai Fu) the development phase that we now denominate Sensory Digital Intonation has evolved. In the proposed presentation at Carpa 3, we will elaborate on this and show examples of how this practice has been and is carried out.

Developing new technology for artistic practice requires other methods than classical problem solving. Some of the challenges involved in the development of new musical instruments have affinities to the realm of wicked problems. Wicked problems are hard to define and have many different solutions that are good or bad (not true or false). The body of possible solutions to a wicked problem can be called a design space and exploring that space must be the objective of a design process.In this paper we present effective methods of iterative design and participatory design that we have used in a project developed in collaboration between the Royal Institute of Technology (KTH) and the University College of Opera, both in Stockholm. The methods are outlined, and examples are given of how they have been applied in specific situations.The focus lies on prototyping and evaluation with user participation. By creating and acting out scenarios with the user, and thus asking the questions through a prototype and receiving the answers through practice and exploration, we removed the bottleneck represented by language and allowed communication beyond verbalizing. Doing this, even so-called tacit knowledge could be activated and brought into the development process.

The use of technology in artistic contexts presents interestingchallenges regarding the processes in which engineers, artists andperformers work together. The artistic intent and goals of the participantsare relevant both when shaping the development practice, and in definingand refining the role of technology in practice. In this paper wepresent strategies for structuring the development process, basedon iterative design and participatory design. The concepts are describedin theory and examples are given of how they have been successfullyapplied. The cases make heavy use of different types of prototypingand this practice is also discussed. The development cases all relateto a single artifact, a gestural voice processing instrument calledThe Throat. This artifact has been in use since it was developed,and from that experience, three cases are presented. The focus ofthese cases is on how artistic vision through practice can recontextualizetechnology, and, without rebuilding it, redefine it and give it anew role to play.