The six-stage method has two distinct advantages. First, breaking down a complex task into manageable component parts facilitates project management and communication, which can be difficult in co-creative work. Second, the structure of six discrete stages provides a conceptual framework that can lead us to ask the right questions, focusing our artistic energy.

While the six-stage method proposed here represents our specific approach, we hope it will provide insight into the working process for other collaborations as well as individual composers and performers who work with real-time electronics. We also have three new interviews with Joel Ryan, Jeff Kaiser, and Karlheinz Essl, who provided us with insights into their own artistic practices.

This exposition describes the working method that developed during my collaboration with Adrián and proposes aubiome as a case study. Previous authors on the subject of creativity proposed stage-based models (Wallas 1926, Bennett 1976, Kratus 1989, Burnard and Younker 2002, Sadler-Smith 2015). Rather than providing a general theory of the creative process, our model attempts to map the co-creative working processes that emerged during our specific collaboration. Our working method is divided into six distinct stages, during which the system is built, musical material is explored, a discrete musical work is built, and it is finally rehearsed and performed. Following that, we include a final feedback stage that serves as planning for the next cycle. Our current version of aubiome represents more than 15 iterations of this working cycle that have taken place over several years.

You will notice that the six stages in this exposition are organized in a cycle, with the ability to move forward and backward between consecutive stages. The stages are shown beginning at the top with Systems Design and progressing clockwise, but this is only a starting point. In practice, we move forward and backward in the cycle over the course of a project, jumping back and forth as needed.