Transcontinental Whispers is an ongoing project which considers the nature of live performance in the digital realm. The concept is roughly based on and best explained by the well known “whispering” game, in which one participant whispers a word in their neighbour’s ear, who then whispers what they think they understood into the next person’s ear until the word arrives back to the original source. Through multiple “human factor” filters, the word becomes distorted and the message takes on new meaning. Transcontinental Whispers follows a similar approach; it will, however, use an audio-visual signal instead of a word and not stop after just one round.
Stefan Kraus (Berlin)
Shandor Chury (Paris)
Vincent Naples (Los Angeles)
Markus Heckmann (Toronto)
Richard Burns (Tokyo)
Roy Gerritsen (Amsterdam)
There were six players in the first performance, spread out over different continents. Each of them received the signal (1920x1080p30) of their predecessor in the chain. The last output was fed back into the first input and the feedback circle is closed. This creates a gigantic looping machine, as the signal requires approximately 20 seconds to travel from one artist to the next, and every action needs about two minute before it arrives back to where it started.
None of the performers will have a complete overview and the performance will be strictly improvised. Nobody knows what is going to happen on December 6th! The audience will be able to follow the performance at aejaa – a new online performance space for real time remote collaboration – where Christos Atzinos and Andreas Levisianos mix the final stream.
None of the performers will have a complete overview and the performance will be strictly improvised. Nobody knows what is going to happen on December 6th! The audience will be able to follow the performance at aejaa – a new online performance space for real time remote collaboration – where Christos Atzinos and Andreas Levisianos mix the final stream.
Each Station uses a TouchDesigner patch to receive the av stream of the neighbouring station and to stream out their own performance.
A TouchDesigner patch was also used to generate titles for the broadcast mix
Title cards and multi screen layouts could be generated automatically
It turned out, that - if you are not one of the streaming giants, or use their global infrastructure, it is far from trivial to send high quality AV signals around the globe in realtime.
Even though we had relay servers on every continent involved and we had stable connections during the rehearsals, the show itself suffered from massive bandwith breakdowns that resulted in a instable framerate and made it very difficult to perform. We think this was because of the date - sunday night just everybody is streaming.
The software used for this performance was programmed in TouchDesigner and consisted of two modules: One patch was used by every performer to receive the audio-visual stream of their nearest neighbour. The other patch served Christos Atzinos as a broadcast mixer. In this patch titles and multi-screen layouts could be generated automatically.
Even though we had relay servers on every continent involved and we had stable connections during the rehearsals, the show itself suffered from massive bandwith breakdowns that resulted in a instable framerate and made it very difficult to perform. We think this was because of the date - sunday night just everybody is streaming.
The software used for this performance was programmed in TouchDesigner and consisted of two modules: One patch was used by every performer to receive the audio-visual stream of their nearest neighbour. The other patch served Christos Atzinos as a broadcast mixer. In this patch titles and multi-screen layouts could be generated automatically.
Transcontinental Whispers V1
https://thenodeinstitute.org/event/transcontinental-whispers/
Produced 2020, Performed live on the 6th of December 2020
____
Concept:
Stefan Kraus
____
Performed on:
https://aejaa.com
aejaa is a space created for people to share creative efforts in real time. it was conceived out of the need to collaborate remotely, without compromising audio or visual quality. aejaa is not bound to certain styles or genres or trends. it is made to keep friends motivated and creative in a sharing environment.
____
Produced in TouchDesigner
____
Audiovisual Performers:
Markus Heckmann (Toronto), Richard Burns (Tokyo), Roy Gerritsen (Amsterdam)
Vincent Naples (Los Angeles), Stefan Kraus (Berlin), Shandor Chury (Paris)
Audio Mix: Andreas Levisianos / aejaa
Video Mix: Christos Atzinos / aejaa
https://thenodeinstitute.org/event/transcontinental-whispers/
Produced 2020, Performed live on the 6th of December 2020
____
Concept:
Stefan Kraus
____
Performed on:
https://aejaa.com
aejaa is a space created for people to share creative efforts in real time. it was conceived out of the need to collaborate remotely, without compromising audio or visual quality. aejaa is not bound to certain styles or genres or trends. it is made to keep friends motivated and creative in a sharing environment.
____
Produced in TouchDesigner
____
Audiovisual Performers:
Markus Heckmann (Toronto), Richard Burns (Tokyo), Roy Gerritsen (Amsterdam)
Vincent Naples (Los Angeles), Stefan Kraus (Berlin), Shandor Chury (Paris)
Audio Mix: Andreas Levisianos / aejaa
Video Mix: Christos Atzinos / aejaa
