Studies in Cognitive Musicology

The first volume of Studies in Cognitive Musicology ed. by U. Seifert (University of Cologne) has been published!

This series focuses on the broad thematic and methodological fields relating to musicology. “Musicology has to cope with transdisciplinary challenges: In the 21st century linguistics, philosophy, cognitive neurosciences and psychology, information and media technology, biological anthropology and other disciplines have become increasingly interested in music research introducing new concepts, questions, methods and technologies for investigating music.” SysMus11, an international student conference of systematic musicology, was held in Cologne, 2011. This conference included several themes and approaches mentioned above to discuss about the nature of music. The proceeding Under Construction: Trans- and Interdisciplinary Routes in Music Research ed. by J. Wewers and U. Seifert introduces this new series.

For more information, please visit the publisher homepage (epOs-Music):

http://www.epos.uni-osnabrueck.de/music/templates/buch.php?id=95

ACM Creativity and Cognition 2013

Quote

Title: ACM Creativity and Cognition 2013
Location: Sydney, Australia
Link out: Click here
Start Date: 2013-06-17
End Date: 2013-06-20

The University of Technology, Sydney will host the International Conference on Creativity and Cognition from the 17th to the 20th of June 2013. The organising committee would like to invite you to join us in Sydney for another conference in this very successful series.
For 2013 the conference theme will be ‘Intersections and Interactions’, due to the inter-disciplinarity that is inherent in the study of creativity and cognition. June 2013 will be an exciting time for Sydney, as the International Symposium on Electronic Art (ISEA 2013) will run from the 7th to 16th, as well as the Vivid Festival of Arts from the 24th of May until the 10th of June.
General topics may include, but are not limited to:
The study of creativity in an individual, in a group or a team, or in a particular cultural context.
  • Discussions of ways to foster creativity though the design, development and/or deployment of pedagogy, of technology support tools for creative work, or of environments and systems of support for creativity.  Of particular interest is work on creative technology support tools that involves collaborations between artists and technologists.
  • Research reports on empirical assessment of various aspects of creativity and cognition that seek to deal with evaluation metrics, measures, and constraints using methodological approaches such as case studies, experimentation, modeling, or simulation.
  • Explorations of new or only partially explored intersections in creativity such as personal creativity in everyday life, the role of emotion in creativity, brain event scanning and recording, and any novel design and evaluation ideas that may one day be valuable to the Creativity and Cognition community.
  • Also of particular interest are papers, posters and demonstrations that describe artworks/performance works, etc. and that explore and reflect on the nature of creativity, the act of creation, and/or artistic expression.

EvoMUSART 2013

Quote

Title: EvoMUSART 2013
Location: Vienna, Austria
Link out: Click here
Start Date: 2013-04-03
End Date: 2013-04-05

2nd International Conference on Evolutionary and Biologically Inspired Music, Sound, Art and Design

Following the success of previous events and the importance of the field of evolutionary and biologically inspired music, sound, art and design, EvoMUSART has become an EvoStar conference with independent proceedings. Thus, EvoMUSART 2013 is the eleventh European Event and the second International Conference on Evolutionary and Biologically Inspired Music, Sound, Art and Design.

The use of biologically inspired techniques for the development of artistic systems is a recent, exciting and significant area of research. There is a growing interest in the application of these techniques in fields such as: visual art and music generation, analysis, and interpretation; sound synthesis; architecture; video; poetry; design; and other creative tasks.

The main goal of evomusart 2013 is to bring together researchers who are using biologically inspired computer techniques for artistic tasks, providing the opportunity to promote, present and discuss ongoing work in the area.

The event will be held from 3-5 April, 2013 in Vienna, Austria as part of the EvoStar event.

Topics of interest

Submissions should concern the use of biologically inspired computer techniques — e.g. Evolutionary Computation, Artificial Life, Artificial Neural Networks, Swarm Intelligence, other artificial intelligence techniques — in the generation, analysis and interpretation of art, music, design, architecture and other artistic fields.

Topics of interest include, but are not limited to:

  • Generation
    • Biologically Inspired Design and Art — Systems that create drawings, images, animations, sculptures, poetry, text, designs, webpages, buildings, etc.
    • Biologically Inspired Sound and Music — Systems that create musical pieces, sounds, instruments, voices, sound effects, sound analysis, etc.
    • Robotic-Based Evolutionary Art and Music.
    • Other related artificial intelligence or generative techniques in the fields of Computer Music, Computer Art, etc.
  • Theory
    • Computational Aesthetics, Experimental Aesthetics; Emotional Response, Surprise, Novelty.
    • Representation techniques.
    • Robotic-Based Evolutionary Art and Music.
    • Other related artificial intelligence or generative techniques in the fields of Computer Music, Computer Art, etc.
    • Surveys of the current state-of-the-art in the area; identification of weaknesses and strengths; comparative analysis and classification
    • Validation methodologies.
    • Studies on the applicability of these techniques to related areas.
    • New models designed to promote the creative potential of biologically inspired computation.
  • Computer Aided Creativity and computational creativity
    • Systems in which biologically inspired computation is used to promote the creativity of a human user.
    • New ways of integrating the user in the evolutionary cycle.
    • Analysis and evaluation of: the artistic potential of biologically inspired art and music; the artistic processes inherent to these approaches; the resulting artifacts.
    • Collaborative distributed artificial art environments.
  • Automation – Techniques for automatic fitness assignment
    • Systems in which an analysis or interpretation of the artworks is used in conjunction with biologically inspired techniques to produce novel objects.
    • Systems that resort to biologically inspired computation to perform the analysis of image, music, sound, sculpture, or some other types of artistic object.

Call for papers: Methods in Biolinguistics Workshop

Quote

Call deadline: March 1, 2013

Methods in Biolinguistics Workshop
at the LSA Summer Institute
Ann Arbor, MI – July 12, 2013

In conjunction with the LSA Special Interest Group on Biolinguistics, we invite the submission of abstracts for a workshop on methodology in biolinguistics, to be held on July 12, 2013 at the LSA Summer Institute at the University of Michigan.

The goal of biolinguistics is to explore theories of language that are biologically plausible as part of an effort to explain how the faculty of language arises both ontogenetically (over the course of an individual’s lifetime) and phylogenetically (on an evolutionary timescale). The LSA Special Interest Group on Biolinguistics, founded in 2009, seeks to explore these questions as well as to help the field of biolinguistics define itself by, as stated in the SIG description, “helping to identify what makes biolinguistics ‘bio’ (and ‘linguistic’), initiate discussions on how it differs from previous models of generative grammar (and how it doesn’t), debate whether generative grammar is actually a prerequisite […] and so on.”

In this workshop, we will foster dialogue on biolinguistic methodology. This topic emerged as a topic of interest and concern during the roundtable discussion at the end of the Workshop on Biolinguistics Organized Session at the LSA Annual Meeting in Portland, January 2012. Specifically, we aim with this workshop to field presentations about how biolinguists (both practicing and aspiring ones) can contribute to interdisciplinary dialogue and be informed consumers of data and literature from fields such as genetics, archaeology, and evolutionary biology. We will also feature morning and afternoon roundtable discussions with the speakers.

Invited speakers:
Noam Chomsky, MIT (T.B.C.)
Norbert Hornstein, University of Maryland

Abstracts for 30-minute oral presentations should be anonymous and between 200-500 words. Please, no more than one single-authored and one joint-authored abstract per person.

Abstracts are due March 1, 2013.
Please send abstracts, preferably in .PDF format, to both:
Kleanthes Grohmann – kleanthi@ucy.ac.cy
Bridget Samuels – bridget.samuels@gmail.com

1st International Conference on Computation, Communication, Aesthetics and X

Quote

Title: 1st International Conference on Computation, Communication, Aesthetics and X
Location: Bergamo Città Alta, Italy
Link out: Click here
Start Date: 2013-06-27
End Date: 2013-06-28

The development of computational tools and media has been radically transforming the landscape for the practice of design, the arts and numerous cultural manifestations. Recognizing this, xCoAx is designed as a multi-disciplinary and nomadic enquiry on arts, computers, computation, communication and the elusive x factor that connects them all.

xCoAx is a forum for the exchange of ideas and the discovery of new and profitable synergies. It is an event exploring the frontiers of digital arts with the participation of a diverse confluence of computer scientists, media practitioners and theoreticians, that will focus on the relations between what can and cannot be computed, what can and cannot be communicated, what is beautiful and how humans and computational systems intersect in the development of new directions in aesthetics.

Format

Day one: Conference and keynote. All presentations will be selected by double-blind peer-review by an international and multidisciplinary scientific committee. Presentations will be organized in panels chaired by a moderator that will sum up the presentations and lead a discussion with the authors and audience. A guest keynote will close the day.

Day two: Demos, poster presentations, exhibition and performances. All demos and posters will be exhibited at various spaces in and around the conference room and the cloisters of UniBG Sant’Agostino. Presentations and discussion will be organized throughout the afternoon, networking authors and audience. During the evening, performances will be presented at Bergamo’s Piazza Vecchia, the central location of the Bergamo Città Alta.

Sixth International Conference of Students of Systematic Musicology

Quote

Title: Sixth International Conference of Students of Systematic Musicology
Location: Genoa, Italy
Link out: Click here
Start Date: 2013-09-12
End Date: 2013-09-14

Sixth International Conference of Students of Systematic Musicology (SysMus13)

CasaPaganini-InfoMus Research Center (DIBRIS-University of Genoa, Italy) is pleased to host the Sixth International Students’ Conference of Systematic Musicology (SysMus13), this coming September 12th-14th, 2013. Organized by graduate students, the SysMus conference series allows young researchers in the field of systematic musicology at the master’s and doctoral levels to present their work in the form of papers, poster sessions and online publications. SysMus13 also provides participants with the opportunity to enjoy keynotes given by internationally renowned specialists and to meet colleagues from around the world. The program will also include a workshop on multimodal recording of music performance using the EyesWeb open software platform. A special session is planned to be organized with a renowned composer, whose music might be performed in a concert.

Systematic Musicology

All research involving meaning, description, and technological mediation of music can be related to musicology. However, the complexity of musical engagement in socio-cultural contexts engenders different networks of research and knowledge, with distinct interdisciplinary configurations, methods and specializations. Systematic musicology specifically deploys this methodological diversity so as to approach each musicological question with a specific configuration of methods. In doing so, systematic musicology often bridges methodological foundations of sciences with critical analysis from the humanities. It promotes the study of aesthetics, semiotics, and cultural studies by incorporating empirical and data-oriented methods into the methodological framework. It relies on paradigms from different disciplines as diverse as the philosophy of aesthetics, theoretical sociology, semiotics, and music criticism, combined with strategies derived from empirical psychology, acoustics, physiology, neurosciences, cognitive sciences, computing, and others. Please visit the website of the SysMus conference series for more information on the scope, methods and aims of systematic musicology: SysMus Conference Series

Call for papers: SysMus13

Call deadline: April 15, 2013

Sixth International Conference of Students of Systematic Musicology (SysMus13)

CasaPaganini-InfoMus Research Center (DIBRIS-University of Genoa, Italy) is pleased to host the Sixth International Students’ Conference of Systematic Musicology (SysMus13), this coming September 12th-14th, 2013. Organized by graduate students, the SysMus conference series allows young researchers in the field of systematic musicology at the master’s and doctoral levels to present their work in the form of papers, poster sessions and online publications. SysMus13 also provides participants with the opportunity to enjoy keynotes given by internationally renowned specialists and to meet colleagues from around the world. The program will also include a workshop on multimodal recording of music performance using the EyesWeb open software platform. A special session is planned to be organized with a renowned composer, whose music might be performed in a concert.

Graduate students are encouraged to submit an abstract (max. 500 words) for either a spoken paper or a poster presentation by April 15, 2013. Papers should be twenty minutes in length followed by a question period of ten minutes. Poster presentations will offer the possibility to discuss one’s research in greater depth. The SysMus13 conference language is English.
Abstracts will be evaluated by an international review committee consisting of doctoral and post-doctoral students representing an array of subfields of systematic musicology. The committee will announce its decisions based on double-blind peer review by June 15, 2013.

Abstracts should be submitted to the address openconf site and should comply to the .word template available at this link.

For any further information please contact: sysmus13@gmail.com

http://www.infomus.org/Events/SysMus13/index.php?lang=eng

Call for Papers: Progress in Motor Control IX

Quote

Call deadline: February 14, 2013

The IXth Progress in Motor Control meeting will be held in Montreal, Canada from July 14-16, 2013. The meeting features Motor Control researchers from around the world with some of the leading names expected to attend.

The three-day meeting brings together experts in diverse areas of Motor Control including the performing arts, such as dance, circus arts and music. There will be two scientific plenary sessions per day addressing the following areas:

*   Cortical and spinal mechanisms of motor control
*   Variability and redundancy in motor control
*   Equilibrium-point control and perception-action coupling
*   Motor control of speech and language
*   Motor control and recovery from injury
*   Motor control and the performing arts

The confirmed speakers include

Micheal Brainard
Paul Cisek
Julie Cote
Joe Cusumano
Brain Day
Anatol G Feldman
Tamar Flash
Scott Grafton
Frank Guenther
C J Heckman
Mark Latash
Charles Larson
Mindy Levin
Richard Nichols
David Ostry
John Rothwell
John Scholz
Douglas Schiller
Paula Silva
Dagmar Sternad
Michael Turvey
Robert  Zatorre

The conference website is www.mcgill.ca/spot/pmcix

Check us out on facebook at https://www.facebook.com/groups/pmcix2013/

Call for papers: SEMPRE Conference: Music and Empathy

Quote

Call deadline: August 16, 2013

Event date: November 9, 2013
At the University of Hull, Hull, UK

This one-day SEMPRE conference hosted by the University of Hull will include invited presentations, a specialist workshop and selected submissions from researchers on the theme of music and empathy. In recent years there has been a growing interest in empathy in the fields of music psychology and education. Research in music and empathy now spans a variety of contexts, including education and development, emotion, expressiveness, and performance. This conference seeks to draw together current research from a range of areas, and to encourage and stimulate discussion on research in music and empathy.

SUBMISSIONS
Contributions are welcome from researchers at all levels and are particularly encouraged from postgraduate students. Submissions should show how the topic relates to the conference theme. Accepted submissions will be broadly organised into themes, and presentations will be chaired by leading researchers. Please send abstracts for spoken papers (max. 200 words) by email to Caroline Waddington (contact details below) by Friday 16 August 2013.

For further information, please contact:
Caroline Waddington
Department of Drama and Music
University of Hull
Hull, HU6 7RX
Email: c.e.waddington@2011.hull.ac.uk

http://www.sempre.org.uk/conferences/forthcoming

Workshop: Concepts and categorization in linguistics, cognitive science and philosophy? (CC2013)

Quote

Title: Workshop: Concepts and categorization in linguistics, cognitive science and philosophy? (CC2013)
Location: Düsseldorf, Germany
Link out: Click here
Start Date: 2013-05-15
End Date: 2013-05-16

Aims and Scope:
The study of concepts lies at the intersection of various scientific disciplines, both formal and empiric. Linguistics deals with concepts as basic semantic units of natural (or ideal) languages, aiming to uncover their logical constitution and structural relationships within a given linguistic system. Cognitive science is interested in concepts insofar as they are the constituents of thought ? e.g. some kind of mental entities (or objects) ? which are used in an explanation of such diverse psychological phenomena like categorization, inference, memory, learning, and decision-making. In philosophy the challenge imposed by concepts consists, among other things, in linking a theory of intentional content with a theory of knowledge (e.g. Peacocke?s challenging question: ?How can our conception of truth in one area be reconciled with the means by which we think we come to know truth about that area??) and thereby establishing a relationship between reference, knowledge and reality, putting the notion of ?concept? in the broader area of epistemological and metaphysical issues.

In recent research ? for instance in the development and discussion of Minsky?s and Barsalou?s frame-theory ?, linguists, cognitive scientists and philosophers have collaborated more and more to contribute to a unified understanding of concepts and conceptual categorization. As welcome as this interdisciplinary programme is, however, the joint venture suffers (so far) from the fact that it is generally left unclear how exactly the different studies on concepts and categorization undertaken in the participating sciences relate to each other. What do linguists, cognitive scientists and philosophers mean by the notion of ?concept?? Is there some sort of core-theory of concepts and conceptual categorization underlying linguistic, psychological and philosophical research? If not, how and why do the specific theories differ?

Keynote Speakers:
Hans-Johann Glock, Universität Zürich, Switzerland
Matthias Kaufmann, Martin-Luther-Universität Halle-Wittenberg, Germany
Edouard Machery, University of Pittsburgh, USA
Albert Newen, Ruhr-Universität Bochum, Germany

The workshop is organized by the projects A01 ?Mathematical modeling of frames? and A05 ?Presuppositions of Frame Theory in the History of Philosophy? in the Collaborative Research Centre CRC 991 ?The Structure of Representations in Language, Cognition and Science? funded by the Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG).

Organizational team: Tanja Osswald, Lars Inderelst, David Hommen