System Models for Digital Performance

This thesis defines a new dynamic pictographic visual language for describing interactive digital performance systems. We review the origins of system model languages, machine performance spaces, reconfigurable performance spaces, and human-computer interfaces for performance. We discuss a number of novel systems for digital performance created by the author. We then introduce the new, symbolic digital performance language in the form of a living diagrammatic environment called Modulator . Finally, we use the Modulator system to categorize digital performance spaces, both by the author and by others, and as a framework to examine and explain the creation of computational performance spaces. Thesis Supervisor: John Maeda Title: Assistant Professor of Design and Computation This work was supported by the Things That Think consortia and Italia Telecom fellow program System Models for Digital Performance