Rhythmic sewing machine
This project is focused around turning a mechanical sewing machine from
1911 into a rhythmic instrument. This can be based on purely acoustical alterations, such as adding various mechanical parts that produce sound.
It can also be based on adding sensors and digital sound making using, for example, a Bela board to create a standalone installation. In any case, the aim of the project is to revitalize an old machine that was rescued from the trash and showing how it can be repurposed into a musicking device.
- Necessary experience: Either experience with (1) acoustic sound production and some mechanical building, or (2) prototyping of interactive music systems using Bela
- Supervisor: Professor Alexander Refsum Jensenius and research fellow Balint Laczko
Interactive furniture
This project is based on exploring how various types of everyday objects, such as furniture, can be repurposed and allow for subtle musical interactions in an environment. We have some old chairs, tables, and radios in storage, and want to explore how digital electronics and music programming can be embedded to allow for interesting musical interactions.
- Necessary experience: Experience with prototyping of interactive music systems
- Supervisor: Professor Alexander Refsum Jensenius and research fellow Maham Riaz
Analyzing 360-degree videos
This project is focused on analysing a dataset containing 365 videos of in-door environments recorded with a 360-degree camera and an ambisonics microphone. The aim is to categorize and analyze the material with respect to environmental rhythms. This internship is part of the ongoing AMBIENT project exploring the effects of the audiovisual qualities of an environment on humans. It is also possible to carry out a behavioral study or experiment on the material.
- Necessary experience: No specific. The project can employ qualitative or quantitative methods based on the interest of the candidate
- Supervisor: Professor Alexander Refsum Jensenius and research fellow Arthur Guo
The effects of extramusical information on musical experiences
The student will help to develop the experimental materials (verbal descriptions and AI-generated music examples) and collect data for an online experiment investigating the effects of extramusical information on musical experiences. In the experiment, participants will receive either morally compromising, neutral, or morally favourable information about imaginary artists/composers, and subsequently listen to their music (generated by AI). Music examples will be randomly paired with the three types of extramusical information. After each piece, participants will be asked to report their liking, felt emotions and felt connection to the artist using a set of rating scales. The experiment is part of the Entrainment, social bonding & pleasure project at RITMO. The student will be able to help with the following tasks:
- Writing AI prompts to generate music examples to be used in the experiment (using beatoven.ai or similar ethical music generation tool)
- Creating the three types of extramusical information (verbal descriptions)
- Setting up the experiment on an online platform (no programming skills required)
- Data processing/analysis (optional)
- Supervisors: Professor Jonna Katariina Vuoskoski and research fellow Abbigail Fleckenstein