| Future Music Blender | Brain Opera Vienna |
A New Finale for the Brain Opera
Ever since first dreaming
of the Brain Opera in the early 1990's, composer and project director Tod
Machover imagined a culmination of the experience where a never-ending,
always-changing stream of music would be created, then added to and shaped by
audiences. From 1996-1998, this role was fulfilled by Brain
Opera Performances, where three trained performers (playing Sensor
Chair, Digital
Baton, and Rhythm
Tree) edited and incorporated audience and Internet contributions, so that
each performance was unique.
But the dream was always to have this ongoing, participatory music exist without
performers, created and extended by anybody and everybody.
This dream will come true with the inauguration of the new Future Music Blender
(FMB), which will provide the Brain Opera with a "Finale" when it
reaches its permanent home at the House of Music in Vienna in July 2000.
After experimenting with Brain Opera hyperinstruments in the Mind Forest and creating
individual music, visitors will enter the adjacent Future Music Blender room.
Here they will select and listen to music and sounds - some created next door
in the Mind Forest, some submitted via the Internet, and some contained in an
onsite music/sound database - represented by small physical objects (using passive
ID tags) available in the FMB space. Selected objects will be tossed into the
"blender", which will always be in the process of automatically creating
new Brain Opera music. Each audience selection will be immediately incorporated,
mixed, and "blended" into the ongoing music.
One visitor at a time will be able to sit in a specially designed Sensor
Chair, conducting and "steering" the direction and feel of the
Brain Opera music at every moment.
A more detailed description of the Future Music Blender follows.
The Future Music Blender (FMB) will
be a competely new feature of the Brain Opera, and will be developed especially
for the House of Music in Vienna. It will provide a culmination to the Mind
Forest experience, and to the entire Brain Opera. And the FMB will evolve and
grow constantly as a result of user input to the Brain Opera, both physically
at the House of Music and via the Internet.
The FMB will be installed in a room, ca. 55 square meters (10 meters x 5.5 meters),
immediately adjacent to the Mind Forest. The natural public flow will insure
that visitors will enter the FMB room after they have had hands-on interactive
experience with the Mind Forest (Figure 1).
Audience members will emerge from the complex, multi-layered, festive atmosphere
of the Mind Forest and enter the FMB, which will be more concentrated, calm,
continuous, and unified (Figure 2).
In the center of the room will be a specially designed Sensor Chair, raised
slightly above floor level, that very precisely measures the subtlest upper
body movement and analyzes expressive gesture while an audience member is seated
in it (Figure 3). This Sensor Chair can be played by one person at a time, who
at that moment becomes the "conductor/creator" of the FMB experience.
On three walls of the FMB room will be beautiful, full wall-size front-projections
of real-time video and computer graphics images, synchronized to the evolving
music; each wall will contain independent graphics, but the three walls will
also be synchronized one to the other.
On the fourth wall, there will be a high-quality display of "FMB-Information,"
providing constant instructions and feedback to the Sensor Chair player about
the state of the instrument (how to play, modality, gesture recognition, etc.),
while providing the rest of the public useful data about the state of the FMB
itself (i.e. which audience music has been selected, who made it, where it comes
from, what is the current "topology" of the FMB music).
A combination of low, comfortable seating and floor cushions will be provided
so that audience members will be encouraged to relax and contemplate in the
FMB room, reflecting on how multiple audience contributions have come together
to make the beautiful piece of music they are listening to, about the whole
House of Music experience, and about the past and futurte of music.
MAIN FUNCTIONS OF FUTURE MUSIC BLENDER
The main purpose of the Future Music Blender is to produce beautiful, constantly
evolving music, that is both:
To achieve this result, the FMB will
use specially designed software, capable of parametrically defining a musical
composition, adding to it, and altering it in various ways; we believe that
this software will be unique and extremely innovative. The FMB will function
in the following way (Figure 4):
a) Audience members will have many opportunities in the Mind Forest to select
and create music that will be sent to the FMB. This will become one of the main
functions of the redesigned Speaking Trees. Each Speaking Tree will be unique:
some will allow response and recording of ideas about music and the mind in
answer to "dialogue" with AI guru Marvin Minsky (as presently); some
will allow audience members to use a Web Crawler, connected directly to the
Internet, to search for interesting audio and to select and edit it in fun,
videogame-style interaction; and finally, some will allow visitors to listen
to music being created at that very moment in the Mind Forest, deciding which
of these sounds should be sent over directly to the FMB. Intelligent coding/editing
software at the Speaking Tree stations will determine how the selected material
might be used once it is incorporated into the FMB.
b) Online audiences will have similar tools at their disposal, allowing them
to choose, create, and submit music to be incorporated into the FMB.
c) Specially designed software will define the FMB music; it will in effect
be a parametric music system with multiple nodes. The first function of this
software will be to determine how to "blend" and incorporate musical
submissions from live and online visitors. The second function is to determine
how the musical composition will sound at any given moment; this sound can be
influenced both by changes made by the current Sensor Chair "performer"
(see below) or by parameter changes made through the Palette instrument by online
players (Figure 5). The third - and most unique - function is to shape how the
FMB evolves and grows over time, so that it sounds like a real musical composition
rather than static "wallpaper music." To achieve this, our software
will simulate a "musical topology" where peaks and valleys represent
tension and relaxation in the music, and multiple adjacent peaks and valleys
give different musical feelings, like movements in a symphony. As the FMB music
develops, the current state of the system will be represented (and visualized
on Wall #4) by a "ball" rolling through this musical landscape. The
position of the ball will determine the sound of the music. The ball will develop
momentum if the music is "pushed" consistently in a particular direction
(such as a musical accelerando/crescendo or the inverse) by the Sensor Chair
player or by Internet participants manipulating topography parameters. When
the FMB music remains in a particular valley, its music will be consistent,
like a single piece or movement; when it rolls into a new valley, the parameters
of the music will change and it will sound like entering a completely new movement
(Figure 6).
THE SENSOR CHAIR
The above steps describe the state of the FMB when the audience enters the FMB
space. The musical system will always be in a state of evolution, but very slowly
and delicately, according to audience input. However, the final step in the
FMB is the personal shaping and manipulation of the FMB that comes through the
Sensor Chair interface. The Sensor Chair is a very powerful interface, combining
precise measurement with freedom of movement. It is easy to learn to play, but
rewards practice and care, since it can be controlled quite virtuosically by
the attentive player. In our audience tests, it has proven to be the most successful
interface that we have designed, and we intend to further improve it for the
FMB at the House of Music.
Audience members will take turns sitting in the Sensor Chair; some will want
to have a quick turn in the "spotlight", while others will want to
spend several minutes exploring and controlling the music. Our experience shows
that crowds do indeed share this interface, and there is a natural balance between
shorter and longer users; it also tends to be an interface that stimulates repeat
users, ideal for people who live in or near Vienna. They can come back and "practice"
the Sensor Chair as often as they'd like!
When a person first sits in the Sensor Chair, music and images will be slowly
and gently circulating around the room. The music will be in whatever state
it was left by the previous players; that state will always be different and
unpredictable, so that the music heard in the FMB will always be fresh for return
visitors, while the software ensures that it will also sound "of one piece."
There will be three boldly marked foot switches on the Sensor Chair platform,
allowing the player to select one of three performance modes:
a) Mixing
b) Soloing
c) Steering
The software will ensure that switches between modes will result in maximal
musical continuity, gliding gracefully from one mode to the other, rather than
causing demo-sounding glitches or hiccups.
In Mixing mode, the player's movements alter the balance, sound quality, sound
processing, and articulation of every detail of the FMB music currently playing;
the "quality" of the music is shaped, but the music itself is generated
by the FMB system.
In Soloing mode, the FMB switches off its generation engine, providing instead
musical sounds and controls appropriate to the current "music topology"
of the parametric settings; each individual gesture produces one individual
sound, creating the most direct connection between performance and result.
In Steering mode, the player takes control of the FMB parameters, steering the
music in and out of peaks and valleys, exploring the terrain of a current musical
region or moving towards another musical goal or feeling; the player will have
a totally new feeling of navigating through a musical landscape.
LISTENING LIVE, LISTENING
ONLINE, AND LISTENING ARCHIVES
Besides helping to create, perform, and shape the FMB music, one of the greatest
pleasures for audiences will be simply listening to the beautiful, evolving,
surprising music that is being generated.
Therefore, providing adequate and ample opportunities for hi-quality listening
to FMB is essential at the House of Music. We propose four different modes of
listening to be made available to the public:
1) Listening in the FMB space. Comfortable, low-lying chairs, and cushy floor
pillows (with perhaps an interesting, contoured floor surface) should be provided
to encourage meditation and reflection in the FMB room.
2) Online Listening. The current FMB music being generated should be continually
multicast onto the Internet, so that online users can tune in at any time to
hear what is going on.
3) Onsite Audio Archives. There should also be listening stations provided somewhere
at the House of Music (in the Cafe) so that visitors can listen to "greatest
hits" FMB music, perhaps selected weekly by the House of Music staff, as
well as to special versions of FMB music and of the Brain Opera prepared and/or
selected by Tod Machover.
4) Take-away Music. CD's and cassettes of FMB music should be offered for sale
in the House of Music shop, including both categories mentioned in #3 above.
It is also worth considering whether visitors could in fact order copies of
FMB music made the day and time of their visit, as an "audio souvenir"
of their trip to the House of Music.