Music in Virtual Worlds. Study on the Representation Spaces.

Abstract

Sites for representing music have been classified by the equipollence between their expressive value and transmission value. In this dialectic game, the media have had a determining influence as an intervening space, from music ima- gined on the radio to its visual representation on a screen to today¿s multimodal display created through the integra- tion of current existing media that expand music¿s potential both in terms of production and consumption. An interest in `cross-media¿ is the basis for this research which focuses on its most integrated and interactive aspect: immersive worlds. The aim is to classify the environments of immersive worlds through analyzing those most used as spaces for musical representation. Documentary research techniques have been used in order to obtain: a census of current immersive musical environments, and functional analysis of important cases. Through this analysis, various proposals are made for uses for immersive worlds, from both a technical perspective as well as from their potential as an inte- ractive medium. In the conclusion, the possibilities for musical representation offered by these metaverses are asses- sed and possible future scenarios are discussed.