In June 2018 the rare opportunity to revisit an activity that established my credentials in tech innovation in live performance contexts came around again.
The first networked performance event I delivered was the Digital Slam in 1995, dubbed by MTV as “the world’s first trans-Atlantic jam session”. A range of telematic technologies were applied to allow artists (musicians, poets and DJs) to perform collaboratively in real time on stages in New York and London. Each subsequent event adopted this format to engage with specific themes. Samhain, 1997, between Dublin and London celebrated the Irish Celtic New Year – a moment in which, according to tradition, one is in neither one space or another. The Space In Between, 1998, between Nottingham and Detroit used shared MIDI data from the electronic instruments of Techno pioneer Carl Craig in Detroit and those of Drum ‘n Bass inventors 4Hero in Nottingham to manipulate a virtual environment projected around the Nottingham venue, immersing the audience. Whale Song, 2010, between Mumbai, India and Deal in Kent, England, allowed musicians and poets to perform a composition inspired by the phenomenon of whales transmitting mating song across oceans.
This year I was commissioned by video artist Ali Hosseini to collaborate with him and a team of technologists who have since significantly advanced the technology employed to support networked performance work. The event was a collaboration between Kings’ College Centre of Telecommunications Research, telecoms company Ericsson and the City of London primarily to demonstrate the capability and potential of 5G networks. The centre piece of the programme was the performance of a new composition by composer/conductor Peter Wiegold by musicians from his ensemble located in Berlin’s Brandenburg Gate Museum and musicians from the Guildhall School of Music and Drama playing in the Roman amphitheatre of the Guildhall in the City of London.
Since my first event new codecs have made it possible to reduce the latency (delay) of audio networks significantly, especial when broadband networking technology such as 5G is used to connect remote venues. Until this event, however, video has always lagged significantly, such that it tends to be used as evidence of authenticity – to confirm to the audience that the performers are indeed hundreds or thousands of miles apart.
The new webRTC codec we employed reduces video latency introduced by compressing and decompressing video for transmission and reception at either end, but not enough to remain in sync with audio being transcoded and transmitted using software like soundjack, which we employed on this project. This would not have been a problem to achieve a performance of a piece of music composed to be tolerant of the minute delays (10-50ms) that even soundjack over 5G would present. However, Peter Wiegold was insistent that he would conduct both ensembles so that one band would be following his gestures and tempo physically sat in front of him, while the other would be hundreds of miles away watching him on a video screen.
The challenge presented to me was to reduce the video delay sufficiently for the two ensembles to play as one, following the conductor as though both bands were in the same auditorium with him. This required reducing latency imposed throughout the entire video signal path. In addition to network delay there are considerations around video capture, including digitisation and conversion/compression going into the computer from the camera as well as compression for network transmission. My task was to specify and install everything in the video path from video cameras for use at both venues, video transcoding and even, the lighting and setting of the subjects.
A memorable moment was that which occurred during technical rehearsals, the night before the performance when we measured the video latency (delay) and found it to be as little as 20ms – hitherto unheard of. Yes we had one of those moments straight out of a Hollywood space exploration movie when mission control bursts into rapturous, self-congratulatory applause and cheers. The next night we went on to whoo an audience of dignitaries from the business, tech and government worlds with Peter Wiegold’s sumptuous composition accompanied by projections form Ali Hossaini’s Epiphany video installation. The event also featured a poignant performance by Professor Mischa Dohler accompanying on piano in Berlin a song sung by his daughter Noa in London.
Another networked performance event, another world’s first.