— chapter 2 – about communication —
After presenting some artistic works that in different ways define the space (i.e. “place-making”) to make relevant aspects or points of it that the composers intend and highlighted, the next problem to solve in this thesis and artistic project is that of communication and sending information from one space to another without forgetting that this message must have a content depending on who is going to be our receiver.
In his paper “Embodiment and disembodiment in networked music performance” (Hajdu, G. 2017) Professor Hajdu discusses the problem of virtual communication in the context of music performance when the senders of the message (musicians) are connected through networked systems: not present in the same space.
This exercise is not limited only to long-distance musical performance, but also explains the function of network performers, who can for example improvise by sending command signals and causing a digital instrument to have a sonic response to what it is sent from a distance.
Based on the experience of presenting different works, both by him and by other composers, and using different systems for the communication between these spaces, Professor Hajdu identifies the lack of the phenomenon of “cause and effect” as the main problem of this kind of performance. Phenomenon to which the audience is accustomed in the context of a stage performance.
However, by the end of the same paper there are two possible ideas presented as a solution to this regard:
First, that throughout history technology has advanced exponentially and rapidly to give greater fidelity and speed to these communications. Which means that even though this is a problem today, there could be (and most likely will be) a technological solution in the future.
And secondly, it encourages to composers and performers to embrace these new forms of artistic communication as a different option to the classical concert (or classical musical presentation). For example, by using these differences in musical practice as a structural form of a new artistic discourse.
These problems, which can be so clearly appreciated in long-distance performance, can also be approached in two ways by expanding the fields of composition towards subjects that are not strictly musical.
In order to provide a more clear overview of what I mean with my last point, I will make a short comparative analysis between two pieces that I think can illustrate this ways to aboard the problems of communication in long-distance performance. For this brief analysis I have chosen some specific technical parameters to compare: context/trama; place where the piece happens; senders-receivers interacting within the piece; to whom is directed the message of the piece; and which medias are used to deliver this message.
[disclaimer]
for this analysis I’m using the terms message and medium just as a technical parameter for the analysis. Far from going deep into the discussion proposed by philosopher Marshall McLuhan.
[end of disclaimer]
The first possibility would be to present the problem of communication within a stricter framework: a script or score within which these interactions occur, but where the illusion of theater-scenic display can help us either to hide the shortcomings of digital communication between events or to take advantage of these shortcomings in the sense of making a comment on the use of technologies.
ChatROM (2018).
This is the case of the alternative opera “ChatROM” by multimedia composer Dong Zhou, written in 2018 as the final project of her Master’s degree at the Hochschule für Musik und Theater Hamburg.
The work is an opera that takes place in two halls (in one building) simultaneously. The arc of the plot is developed by telling the story of a lesbian anime fan and a transgender cosplayer who meet through an application called ChatRom showing their chances and challenges in the digital era.
As the long distance communication of this work takes place as a result of a script, senders and receivers of the message of this work will be the performers (in this case a singer and an actor).
The message is defined by the interest and what the protagonists of the story want to express. Here it is very important to point out that the composer must choose a language, because what is intended to reach the audience is precisely an idea or ideas that the protagonists express verbally.
About the medium, we can say that it is used to simulate a conversation and interaction between two people who use an application or an internet page to get to know each other. In this sense, the medium plays a central role in this work as all its strengths and weaknesses are exploited as they are included within the universe of this work.
As a counterpart to this possibility of using technology as an integral part of an opera script, there is another mechanism that I would like to highlight in this thesis, which is the possibility of using network communication not between performers as in the previous example and the the mentioned case of networked improvisation, but between the audience and the performers.
Genesis (2020).
This is the case of the work “Genesis” by composer Alexander Schubert, premiered in 2020 when the pandemic was beginning to hit Central Europe, which gave the premiere an even stronger connotation in the sense that it is a work that communicates the audience with the performers in a totally remote way, using an internet server for this purpose.
The work “Genesis” is a video game like work, where four performers interacted within a delimited space over 7 days. The audience had the possibility to control through the internet server one of these performers who functioned as an avatar within this new physical space, allowing them to interact with other avatars, modify the space by requesting new objects or interact with those objects that other users had already left in the space.
This work marks a radical difference with the other two versions of long distance communication for a work of art, in that this time the communication is stripped of any script-score since it is always constructed from the will of the user-audience who will actively shape the place where the work is developed.
As the message is again the human communication, it has been necessary to choose again a language through which to communicate the intentions of the audience that will be required of an active attitude with the performer who will be the one to define the limits of what he or she is or is not willing to do in this environment.
The medium here plays a fundamental role for the communication and the “good development” of the performance. Since there is no script or score that allows the development of the work independently of the communication channels, the medium becomes the communication itself, which brings with it certain liberties and risks: any failure in the system that may arise for communication will be reflected in the absence of the participation of any of the spectators.