Interfaces – a Musical Situation

Abstract

An interface may be considered being a (social) situation where information is transferred effecting and affecting both, the communicator and the recipient. There is evidence, that musical performance could be argued to be a paradigm of this situation. As musical performance is part of a communication-process formalized in music an interface is part of a communication-process formalized in a non-mechanistic virtual reality. Musical perfomance as well as interfaces are based on expressive bahavior – by giving access to they “construct” music and virtual realities. These hypotheses are argued on the basis of experimental data of communication-processes as well as theories of music and media-art.