Abstract
I coordinate research at IPEM, the Institute for Systematic Musicology at Ghent University (www.xrhil.ugent.be). Our research takes an empirical, technology- and data-driven approach to understanding the principles underlying bodily coordination in musical interaction. We are particularly interested in how entrainment processes relate to human experience and the regulation of the embodied mind. One of the core technologies we use is eXtended Reality (XR). By directly tapping into the action–perception processes through which we interact with others and our environment, XR allows us to extend musical embodiment into the virtual domain. As a scientific tool, XR offers new ways of bringing experimental control and ecological validity closer together. As an artistic medium, it opens new possibilities for musical expression, interaction and experience. In my talk, I will focus specifically on our work with multimodal embodied virtual agents (EVAs), and explore how interacting with virtual musical bodies can help us better understand, and ultimately extend, embodied human music interaction.
Bio
Pieter-Jan Maes is professor in Systematic Musicology and director of IPEM and XRHIL (www.xrhil.ugent.be) at Ghent University, Belgium. His research focuses on embodied music interaction, investigating how bodily and brain coordination shape musical interaction and experience. His work combines empirical research with computational methods and emerging technologies, with a particular focus on eXtended Reality (XR). Through interdisciplinary research at the intersection of music, science and technology, he explores XR both as a tool for studying human interaction and as a medium for creating new forms of musical interaction and experience. A central focus of his current work is the development and study of embodied virtual agents that can interact with human musicians.