Informatics

At RITMO, we have several different disciplines working together. The three core disciplines at RITMO are musicology, psychology, and informatics. In addition, we have people working in philosophy, physics, computer science, biology, dance studies, and so on. This also means that we have several different publication cultures. In this blog post, I will reflect on the differences between them. The Paper Proceedings Culture My professorship is in music technology. I don’t know if music technology should be considered a discipline; it might be better described as a community of communities. Music technologists have different types of backgrounds and work in many different institutions. RITMO has music technologists from musicology (the Faculty of Humanities) and informatics (the Faculty of Mathematics and Natural Sciences). The latter builds on what I call a paper proceedings publication culture. Informatics, computer science, and various types of engineering are fast-moving fields that often publish in what is called “conference proceedings”. ...

I am happy to announce that the Research Council of Norway has awarded funding to establish RITMO Centre of Excellence for Interdisciplinary Studies in Rhythm, Time and Motion. The centre is a collaboration between Departments of Musicology, Psychology and Informatics at University of Oslo. Project summary Rhythm is omnipresent in human life, as we walk, talk, dance and play; as we tell stories about our past; and as we predict the future. Rhythm is also central to human biology, from the microoscillations of our nervous system to our heartbeats, breathing patterns and longer chronobiological cycles (or biorhythms). As such, it is a key aspect of human action and perception that is in complex interplay with the various cultural, biological and mechanical rhythms of the world. ...