| Since
its New York premiere in July 1996, the Brain
Opera has toured in the United States, Europe, Asia, and
South America, evolving and improving. This year many new features
will be added to the Brain Opera by Professor
Tod Machover and his Opera
of the Future Group, in preparation for its permanent installation
at the new House of Music in Vienna, Austria, which will open
in July 2000. |
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larger sketch
available
larger
draft available
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The
House of Music - currently being built in an historic palace
(where the Vienna Philharmonic was founded) in the center of
Vienna - will be a unique institution devoted to letting visitors
explore all aspects of music in a hands-on, state-of-the-art
way. Music history, music and society, the unique place of music
in Viennese culture, acoustics and sound, music composition,
music education, and the future of music will all be covered
in evolving installations. The House of Music is being developed
by Heller Werkstatt, with whom Machover and the Media Lab collaborated
on the Meteorite
Museum in Essen, Germany, which opened in June 1998. |
The Brain Opera is currently back at MIT to be updated and extended
for its new home in Vienna. Significant improvements will be
made to the "Mind
Forest" which will allow greater audience participation
in creating and selecting music and sounds, and increasing the
connections between audience contributions and the Brain
Opera "composition." |
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| An
entirely new activity will be added to the Brain Opera - to be
housed in an adjacent room - called the Future
Music Blender (FMB), which will allow visitors to add sounds
to an ongoing stream of music, and to shape and steer this music
through body gesture. This Future Music Blender has been a dream
ever since the start of the Brain Opera project, and will finally
be realized this year! |
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