Quick Links

MIMI

Mimi's concert debut at the People Inside Electronics concert, on June 5, 2010, with Isaac Schankler on a Yamaha Disklavier. Photo by E. Chew.

Mimi is a multi-modal interactive musical improvisation system that explores the impact of visual feedback in performer-machine interaction. The Mimi system enables the performer to experiment with a unique blend of improvisation-like on-the-fly invention, composition-like planning and choreography, and expressive performance. Mimi's improvisations are created through a factor oracle. The visual interface gives the performer and the audience instantaneous and continuous information on the state of the oracle, its recombination strategy, the music to come, and that recently played. The performer controls when the system starts, stops, and learns, the playback volume, and the recombination rate. Mimi is not only an effective improvisation partner, it also provides a platform through which to interrogate the mental models necessary for successful improvisation.
The Mimi system is designed and implemented using the SAI framework invented by François. Mimi is a recent example of factor oracle based improvisation software in the OMax family.

Check out the project website for videos and links to papers.