Back in 2012, I published what has become my (by far) most-read blog post: Disciplinarities: intra, cross, multi, inter, trans. There, I introduced a figure based on a combination of Stember’s textual description and Zeigler’s sketch.

Making a vector version

I published the figure “properly” in my book Sound Actions, and, as described in this blog post), made a vector version (PDF) and source file (ODG) available on GitHub with a CC-BY license.

Disciplinarity figure

Making a SVG version

Recently, I have tried using AI tools to create SVG versions of various illustrations. This has worked remarkably well, including “SVG’ing” the MishMash emblem and the MishMash Cube. One of the cool things about this is that it opens for creative things, like making the MishMash bubbles blink.

I was curious about whether the disciplinarity figure could also be “SVG’ified”. I have had more success with ChatGPT than CoPilot for such tasks, so I started with GPT@UiO using the GPT-5.1 Thinking model. And, lo and behold, on the first attempt, it made this for me:

alt text

Some tweaking

Not bad, given a PNG version as the starting point. The drop shadow wasn’t really necessary; the arrow was in the wrong direction, and the small circles weren’t quite how I wanted them. But with some tweaking back and forth, I arrived at this:

alt text

It is all code

The cool thing is that the figure is now available in plain code, which can serve as a starting point for creating animations and other fun things.

<svg width="1024" height="300"
     viewBox="0 0 1024 300"
     xmlns="http://www.w3.org/2000/svg">

  <defs>
    <marker id="arrowhead" markerWidth="10" markerHeight="7"
            refX="10" refY="3.5" orient="auto" markerUnits="userSpaceOnUse">
      <polygon points="0 0, 10 3.5, 0 7" fill="black"/>
    </marker>

    <style>
 text {
 font-family: "Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif";
 fill: #000;
 }
    </style>
  </defs>

  <!-- No background rect: transparent where not drawn -->

  <!-- Common parameters -->
  <!-- Big circles centers along x: 110, 310, 510, 710, 910; y=150 -->
  <!-- Radius ~85 -->

  <!-- Intra-disciplinary -->
  <circle cx="110" cy="150" r="85" fill="white" stroke="black" stroke-width="3"/>
  <circle cx="110" cy="150" r="10" fill="white" stroke="black" stroke-width="2"/>

  <text x="110" y="24" text-anchor="middle" font-size="30">Intra-</text>
  <text x="110" y="52" text-anchor="middle" font-size="30">disciplinary</text>

  <!-- Cross-disciplinary -->
  <circle cx="310" cy="150" r="85" fill="white" stroke="black" stroke-width="3"/>

  <!-- same layout as Multi (was ring R=50): center + hex inside big circle -->
  <circle cx="310" cy="200" r="8" fill="white" stroke="black" stroke-width="1.5"/>
  <circle cx="266.7" cy="175" r="8" fill="white" stroke="black" stroke-width="1.5"/>
  <circle cx="266.7" cy="125" r="8" fill="white" stroke="black" stroke-width="1.5"/>
  <circle cx="310" cy="100" r="8" fill="white" stroke="black" stroke-width="1.5"/>
  <circle cx="353.3" cy="125" r="8" fill="white" stroke="black" stroke-width="1.5"/>
  <circle cx="353.3" cy="175" r="8" fill="white" stroke="black" stroke-width="1.5"/>
  <circle cx="310" cy="150" r="8" fill="white" stroke="black" stroke-width="1.5"/>

  <text x="310" y="24" text-anchor="middle" font-size="30">Cross-</text>
  <text x="310" y="52" text-anchor="middle" font-size="30">disciplinary</text>

  <!-- Multi-disciplinary -->
  <circle cx="510" cy="150" r="85" fill="white" stroke="black" stroke-width="3"/>

  <!-- center + hex: ring R=16 so each r=8 satellite is tangent to center (no overlap) and tangent to neighbours -->
  <circle cx="510" cy="166" r="8" fill="white" stroke="black" stroke-width="1.5"/>
  <circle cx="496.1" cy="158" r="8" fill="white" stroke="black" stroke-width="1.5"/>
  <circle cx="496.1" cy="142" r="8" fill="white" stroke="black" stroke-width="1.5"/>
  <circle cx="510" cy="134" r="8" fill="white" stroke="black" stroke-width="1.5"/>
  <circle cx="523.9" cy="142" r="8" fill="white" stroke="black" stroke-width="1.5"/>
  <circle cx="523.9" cy="158" r="8" fill="white" stroke="black" stroke-width="1.5"/>
  <circle cx="510" cy="150" r="8" fill="white" stroke="black" stroke-width="1.5"/>

  <text x="510" y="24" text-anchor="middle" font-size="30">Multi-</text>
  <text x="510" y="52" text-anchor="middle" font-size="30">disciplinary</text>

  <!-- Inter-disciplinary -->
  <circle cx="710" cy="150" r="85" fill="white" stroke="black" stroke-width="3"/>

  <!-- seven inside: center + hex ring R=12 (clear overlap, still readable) -->
  <circle cx="710" cy="162" r="8" fill="white" stroke="black" stroke-width="1.5"/>
  <circle cx="699.6" cy="156" r="8" fill="white" stroke="black" stroke-width="1.5"/>
  <circle cx="699.6" cy="144" r="8" fill="white" stroke="black" stroke-width="1.5"/>
  <circle cx="710" cy="138" r="8" fill="white" stroke="black" stroke-width="1.5"/>
  <circle cx="720.4" cy="144" r="8" fill="white" stroke="black" stroke-width="1.5"/>
  <circle cx="720.4" cy="156" r="8" fill="white" stroke="black" stroke-width="1.5"/>
  <circle cx="710" cy="150" r="8" fill="white" stroke="black" stroke-width="1.5"/>

  <text x="710" y="24" text-anchor="middle" font-size="30">Inter-</text>
  <text x="710" y="52" text-anchor="middle" font-size="30">disciplinary</text>

  <!-- Trans-disciplinary -->
  <circle cx="910" cy="150" r="85" fill="white" stroke="black" stroke-width="3"/>

  <!-- seven: center + hex (ring R=7); tighter than before, still enough offset to read seven strokes -->
  <circle cx="910" cy="157" r="10" fill="white" stroke="black" stroke-width="1.5"/>
  <circle cx="903.9" cy="153.5" r="10" fill="white" stroke="black" stroke-width="1.5"/>
  <circle cx="903.9" cy="146.5" r="10" fill="white" stroke="black" stroke-width="1.5"/>
  <circle cx="910" cy="143" r="10" fill="white" stroke="black" stroke-width="1.5"/>
  <circle cx="916.1" cy="146.5" r="10" fill="white" stroke="black" stroke-width="1.5"/>
  <circle cx="916.1" cy="153.5" r="10" fill="white" stroke="black" stroke-width="1.5"/>
  <circle cx="910" cy="150" r="10" fill="white" stroke="black" stroke-width="1.5"/>

  <text x="910" y="24" text-anchor="middle" font-size="30">Trans-</text>
  <text x="910" y="52" text-anchor="middle" font-size="30">disciplinary</text>

  <!-- Dotted path with arrow pointing at intra-disciplinary (left) -->
  <path d="
 M 910 238
 L 910 262
 L 110 262
 L 110 238"
        fill="none"
        stroke="black"
        stroke-width="4"
        stroke-dasharray="4,6"
        marker-end="url(#arrowhead)"/>

</svg>

Open license

In the spirit of Open Research, I share this code with a CC-BY license. If you use it in academic work, please cite Sound Actions:

  • Jensenius, A. R. (2022). Sound Actions: Conceptualizing Musical Instruments. The MIT Press. PDF

And here is the BibTeX code:

@book{jenseniusSoundActionsConceptualizing2022,
  title = {Sound {{Actions}}: {{Conceptualizing Musical Instruments}}},
  author = {Jensenius, Alexander Refsum},
  year = 2022,
  publisher = {The MIT Press},
  address = {Cambridge, MA}
}

And, I am always curious to get links to places where the figure is used!