A bit about my work and interests - Paul Keene

I am a musician and researcher currently finishing an interdisciplinary PhD at The University of Edinburgh investigating patterns of physical (body-object) expressiveness and communication through Improvisational performance-- body-centred instantiation occurring in the locative, noetic moment of creativity. I look at non-verbal communication in gesture-- through analysis of vocal waveforms, applying conversational analysis to film of improvisatory performance and analysis of motion tracking data. I am looking at ways to facilitate a re-imagining of how we contextualise and interpret the results of this type of investigation. I am an advocate of a `syncretist' approach in multi-strand enquiry. One of the goals of this research is to find ways to apply the results toward creating a `more humane' approach to multimedia performance `augmented', `enhanced' or `mediated' by computing and electronic technology.

Kresch, one of the groups I perform in, with David Murray-Rust, works from an improvisatory stance. How this has worked so far has been an evolving experiment in interactivity and intersubjectivity. Dave has fed me sounds, in the moment, and I have worked with the material presented, not knowing what I had been given, both of us in mutual exploration going forward.

Another of the groups I perform with, The Dyad (Chris Ross - Kit, Ben Schögler - Bass), has used motion tracking technology with a nod to interactivity.

I also work with dance and film, improvising and composing in collaboration with various people. This clip, Test Dancer, is a collaboration with Emma Dunn - Dancer, and Nick Gibbon - Filmmaker, looking at dance improvisation, from the dancer's perspective.



As my primary instrument is the piano, I hope to be able to improvise with people, either with keyboard or acoustic piano, prepared or not. Working with visuals, and maybe even live coding would be amazingly fun things to do also.

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