‘FIELD AND AGENT’: Health and characteristic dualities in the co-creative, interactive and musical tangibles in the RHYME project

Abstract

In this article the author takes Umberto Eco’s aesthetic ideal of the Open work, as well as his concept of the Field of possibilities, as her operative analytical models. She explores how a group of users activates certain types of dualities inherent in the CCTs in their co-creation with the musical and interactive media, including object/agent, predictable/unpredictable, structured/unstructured, and field/ agent. The activation of these dualities is vitalizing for the users and can in turn be framed in relation to health. She draws upon a qualitative research design with structured analysis and five semi-structured interviews with the close others who assisted the children to answer her research question: Can Eco’s concept of a Field of possibilities explain the dualities found in the CCTs developed in the RHYME project, and if so, how does it affect our understanding of co-creation as vitalizing and health promoting? First of all the RHYME project is introduced and its core concepts defined: health, close others, CCTs, children with disabilities, and co-creation. Then Eco’s related notions of the open work and the field of possibilities are presented. With the help of a selection of quotations harvested from her master’s thesis, the author explores what kind of dualities the CCTs potentially create. In the concluding discussion, it is suggested that the CCTs possess a two-dimensionality in the co-creation event. The ways in which this new awareness might influence the field of music therapy are also elaborated upon.