Visiting Researcher at CNMAT, Thor Magnusson will discuss work in composition, performance and the development of audiovisual software - from small instrumental applications to live coding systems. Exploring concepts of affordances and constraints, the ixi lang and Threnoscope live coding environments will be presented as examples of limited systems that frame the musician's compositional thoughts. Both are systems that engage with the visual as an integral element of musical composition, equally as prescriptive and representative notation for musical processes.

The talk will examine how music software development goes hand in hand with music research; where the digital system's requirements for specifications and completeness inevitably forces a strong understanding of the source domain. Such musical practice, when expressed through performance or composition, derives from a rigid research process, yet exists separately from it.