To the edge with china: Explorations in network performance

The definition of locative media 1 is a relatively recent one. Coined by Karlis Kalnins during a workshop in Karosta, Latvia, in the Summer of 2003, the term broadly denotes artistic uses of location-based media as opposed to their corporate applications (cfr. Crow et al., 2008). As Drew Hemment (2004) points out, locative media "uses portable, networked, location aware computing devices for user-led mapping and artistic interventions in which geographical space becomes its canvas". From the very beginning, however, the term appears to be imbued with vagueness and ambiguity, being also frequently attached to the definition of ubiquitous computing and of smart or augmented environments. Looking through the introductory essay of the Transcultural Media Reader (Russell 2006), locative media seem, on the one hand, to indicate a new conceptual framework within which to discuss changes of consciousness in relation to virtual and real places happening by means of (not necessarily new) information and communication technologies; on the other hand, they delineate a new critical area where the hegemonic uses of locative tools can be analyzed in order to tactically employ their possibilities for creative and user-oriented purposes. Although the political assumption of this second aspect has not always been pursued, especially since locative media arts easily find commercial funding and application (cfr. Tuters and Varnelis 2006; Lemos 2008), it is on this issue that I want to focus today.

In an interactive system designed to produce music, the sound synthesis engine and the user interface layer are fully integrated, but usually designed in parallel and in a modular way. Decoupling the interface layer from the synthesis engine, not only allows the use of best suited technologies and programming languages for each purpose, but also enhances the overall system flexibility. This paper discusses the idea behind a remote user interface and a processing engine that resides in a different host, taken to the most extreme situation in which a user can access the synthesizer from any place in the world using internet technology. This paradigm has promising applications in collaborative music creation systems for geographically displaced communities of user. The Public Sound Objects is an experimental system on which this concept is applied, and its currently under development at the Music Technology Group of the UPF in Barcelona.

2021

The Global Hyperorgan is an intercontinental, creative space for acoustic musicking. Existing pipe organs around the world are networked for real-time, geographically-distant performance, with performers utilizing instruments and other input devices to collaborate musically through the voices of the pipes in each location. A pilot study was carried out in January 2021, connecting two large pipe organs in Pitea, Sweden, and Amsterdam, the Netherlands. A quartet of performers tested the Global Hyperorgan’s capacities for telematic musicking through a series of pieces. The concept of modularity is useful when considering the artistic challenges and possibilities of the Global Hyperorgan. We observe how the modular system utilized in the pilot study afforded multiple experiences of shared instrumentality from which new, synthetic voices emerge. As a long-term technological, artistic and social research project, the Global Hyperorgan offers a platform for exploring technology, agency, vo...

Proceedings of the SMC Conferences, 2014

The Black Swan is a networked performance system for two groups of non-specific performers. The work derives its title and inspiration from Nicolas Taleb's description of extreme and catastrophic events. These "black swan" events are characterized as being outliers, unpredictable, and yet completely explainable when viewed in retrospect. The Black Swan uses this concept in performance; throughout the piece a group of instrumentalists is solely responsible for interpreting the score while a group of motion-tracked performers advance the score. However, when the "Black Swan" occurs, the motion-tracked group begins to generate sound, an event that the instrumentalists could not have anticipated. A third party is responsible for distributing instructions to each performance group over the network during the performance. Therefore, The Black Swan explores the way networked performers communicate with each other as well as the dramaturgy between ensemble members in a networked setting.

This paper considers the nature of work done in performances that seek to " create bridges " across cultures and to highlight shared heritage across political borders. What agendas are privileged, and what forms of representation are entailed? I explore these issues via case studies in musical collaboration along the " Silk Road " , the ancient trade routes brought to life in the contemporary imagination to link cultures from Europe to East Asia. I privilege the perspectives of the various actors involved, arguing that careful attention to the experiences of participants serve to texture our understanding of cultural border-crossings. Music-making, as a form of embodied practice, may serve as a way of deconstructing conventional narratives but it may also serve to uphold established hierarchies. I argue that in cross-border encounters musicians draw on diverse imaginaries – learned aesthetic norms, bodily habitus and imaginative resources – casting their collaborators as musical and social others in their efforts to make sense of what they hear.

Proceedings of International Computer Music …, 2008

The native time delay of audio transmission over high speed networks is used to create musical devices to play on and with the network. Different strategies that have been part of the practice of the Net vs. Net collectivea permanent network ensemble playing exclusively over wide area digital networks-are discussed. A tool to synchronize displaced musicians visually cue the performers and the audience. It also activates synchronized musical processes. The latency is used to create delay effects and reverbs embedded on the bidirectional path using feedback delay network filters. We also present a technique to play distributed rhythmic patterns over the network that are designed to sound different-with diverging rhythmic and phase structures-on each location.

2021

We present a report of the experience of our remote musical collaboration during the Covid19 pandemic regarding live electronic, audiovisual compositions, and telematic performance in the context of the project Sound Notebooks. We discuss the problems found and the solutions adopted in the performances, as well as the hypotheses of musical research raised by the remote environment. We argue that the variety of expressive modes, sonic modalities, and video possibilities in the Sound Notebooks repertoire we presented contributes to the construction of an aesthetics for remote performance. We additionally address practical and conceptual questions involving the composition, performance, and technical issues of the networked environment. We conceived of the environments for the remote performances through a relationship to the technical needs of the repertoire. We conclude with a brief discussion of the differences between live electronic concerts in physical and telematic spaces. Telem...

2003

Col laboration has long been a key element in I find Internet time delay rather interesting and I think of it as a kind of unique acoustic of this media.. .. [R]ather than to play existing music on this new time basis, what is interesting to me is trying to find a musical language that works on this time axis.. .. [3] This same idea motivated the SoundWIRE group at the Center for Research in Music and Acoustics (CCRMA) at Stanford University to conduct significant research over the last few years to address the influence of network conditions in acoustic communication [4,5]. Latency has a highly variable and unpredictable nature, creating time-based errors, de-sequencing and even partial loss of content, resulting in difficult conditions for performance control. There are major efforts under way to improve the situation by increasing bandwidth and data compression options. Such improvements, along with restricting projects to Large Area Networks (LANs) or to Wide Area Networks (WANs) in geographically constrained territories (e.g. a country or even a continent), may reduce network latency to levels that will not impede real-time acoustic communication over the Internet. Network latency tends to be central to the discussion of network-based activities, yet there are other important issues, such as who will perform with these systems and whether timebased musical events/performances are always appropriate. REDEFINING THE ACOUSTIC COMMUNITY Designing and implementing a network music system supposes that new, meaningful sonic results can be achieved by collab

Journal of Music, Technology and Education, 2017

Online Orchestra is a telematic performance project, aimed at enabling young and amateur musicians in geographically remote locations to make music together over the Internet. This article describes the contexts out of which the project emerged, including an overview of the benefits of ensemble performance, and a survey of precedent telematic performance projects. It goes on to describe how the starting premises of Online Orchestra respond to these contexts and ends with a summary of Online Orchestra's approach, and its key findings. The article describes in particular how many recent telematic performance projects rely on specialist networks and equipment, and that alternative design solutions are necessary, and possible, in order to reach young and amateur musicians in their own remote locations.