DIGITAL HUMANITIES,
MUSIC INFORMATICS

Digital representation, processing, and linking of material and immaterial cultural artifacts, especially in the field of music and media, for cultural and creative industries, as well as for academic and educational contexts.

Advantages of our research

Representation of Multidimensionality

Cultural artifacts are as diverse and complex as the people who create them. Therefore, their digital representation requires expertise in handling heterogeneous and complex data. Music-related data, for example, reflects multiple modalities: symbolic, conceptual, gestural, and sound.

Interaction and Linking

We aim to enable new forms of interaction with digital representations of cultural artifacts and facilitate the sharing of knowledge about them. The enrichment and linking of data are central tasks. In this way, we create points of connection for both people and machines.

Music and Audio Signal Processing

We work with methods suitable for both the dynamic generation and analysis of music. Music Information Retrieval, sound synthesis, and composition go hand in hand for us.

The right team for the job

Our team combines expertise in (music) informatics, musicology, digital humanities, and computer philology, as well as experience in inter- and transdisciplinary contexts. It is precisely this diversity and the integration of various fields that enable us to develop and implement innovative concepts.

Our field of work encompasses music and audio signal processing, generative music, and Music Information Retrieval, as well as format development, the conceptualization and development of software components, and computer-assisted methods for processing and interacting with digital representations of music. We are involved in the development of comparative analysis methods, the description and generation of musical performances, the conceptualization of new forms of interactive access to music-related content, New Interfaces for Musical Expression, the conduct of user studies, and the provision of dynamic interaction concepts and visualization forms.

A central focus of our work lies in the development of representations and interactions that are open to diverse styles, notations, and cultural spaces. In this way, we enable interactive and personalized access to music-related content.

Music producer working on a digital piano in front of multiple computer screens displaying music composition software

Musical notation is not logically self-consistent. Its visual grammar is open-ended—far more so than any numerical system or formal grammar.

Eleanor Selfridge-Field (Beyond MIDI)

Contact Person

Prof. Dr. Anna Plaksin
Prof. Dr.-Ing. Axel Berndt

Contact

hallo@kreativ.institute

Our other areas of research

Research overview

Composition &
SOUND DESIGN

Music informatics deals with technologies for analysing and composing music, including the development of software and computer-based instruments. Film informatics, on the other hand, focuses on the creation, analysis and distribution of film and video content using technologies for editing, animation, special effects and sound design.

Learn more

Digital
Mediaproduction

Research activities in this area focus on image and sound manipulation, automated annotation and new data processing methods. Human-centred design and human-computer interaction play a central role here.