VR Viola
2017, developing a platform to conduct XR audiovisual experiments
The most common format for collaborative audiovisual performance is directed towards visualisation of sound. Some artists do experiment with inverse logics - sonifying visual art, similar to playing a graphic notation, or experimenting with bidirectional improvisational mechanic. This contribution to the latter, an attempt to establish a meaninggful dialogue, was inspired by Carlheinz Stockhausen’s spatial experiment. I decided to create a setting, which would arrange live sonic and visual outputs from different artists to form specific feedback loops and a unique experience for the audience.
Musicians, located in separate isolated rooms are at the same time co-present in shared virtual environment. Each of them improvisationally sonifies this environment, that they experience through VR. Inside VR they see themselves being present in one virtual space, but they do not hear each other. Their sound is mixed together in a room, where the visual artists hear the sound, and change the VR environment in realtime, according to what musicians play. This way a full audiovisual loop is created. In the same room, where all sounds are mixed together, all musicians are represented realtime withint the virtual environment using panoramic projection. Audience can freely walk betwen all the separate musicians and the mixing room.