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The Brain Opera
- Subject: The Brain Opera
- Date: Sun, 16 Jun 1996 01:42:16 -0600
I apologize for the length of this post (flame me if it suits you) but I think it's
quite relevant for those with a deep interest in the PT's Lifehouse story.
A few years ago, on a BBC radio special focusing on the Lifehouse project, PT lamented
that at the time he was trying to move the project forward, although the sounds (e.g,
the ARP, Moog, etc.) and the concepts (audience members helping create the music, ala
the sequencing loops of Baba O’Riley) were there, “the computer technology needed to
process all that information just wasn’t.”
Who fans interested in exploring some of these themes (and contributing their own note,
chord, or melody to a single concert performance) might want to check out The Brain
Opera which will be on display free at the Juilliard School of Music in NYC beginning
July 23rd. This is a $5 million project created by Tod Machover, founder of the
Hyperinstrument Group at MIT’s Media Lab. Machover’s past instruments have been used by
the likes of Peter Gabriel, Yo-Yo Ma, and the Los Angeles Philharmonic. MIT’s Media Lab,
for those unfamiliar with it, is an ultra-cool place at the cutting edge of AI, robotics
and computer music technology. The WWW-site for this project
(http://brainop.media.mit.edu) gives the lowdown on the whole event. I’ve included below
some excerpts from a 5/27 piece in the NY Times that should give a rough idea of what’s
going on:
“...On a PC, hooked up to the Internet, a web of neurons appears, represented by a panel
of lights, which flash in different colors as they are touched by the cursor. Nearby, a
singer, hitting the right pitch, causes an image of an eye to open on a monitor, until
the screen is suffused in brilliant white light. Machover, standing in one corner, holds
a wired baton in the air, conducting an invisible synthesized chorus whose sounds react
to his gestures.
The Brain Opera...requires a forest of computers, fast interaction with the Internet and
software that will be state of the art...It will be a piece of participatory music
theater...a celebration of technological possibility and an attempt to demonstrate a
theory of intelligence....
In Machover’s words, “Each member of the public -- either at a physical performance or
via the Internet -- will have a role in shaping, contributing to, and creating the opera
itself.” Sounds produced with a variety of high-tech instruments will be filtered,
refined and combined with other sounds and words using Machover’s software.
Machover is directing a small army of designers, architects, musicians and hackers to
create a version of a musical brain... hoping to give an illustration of how these
layers and combinations form a work that is not only marked by intelligence but designed
to illustrate intelligence’s deepest nature.
That is why it is being called “The Brain Opera”, and why Marvin Minsky, one of the
founders of the Media Lab and the author of “The Society of Mind”, will also play a role
in the final composition.
Minsky’s theory developed out of a lifetime of work trying to create artificial computer
intelligence. He believes that intelligence stems from diversity, arising from the
interaction of independent agents in the brain.
One agent may not even be aware of what another is doing or how the whole is shaped.
Instead, actions and decisions emerge from “conflicts and negotiations among societies
of processes that constantly challenge one another.”
This is, of course, precisely the opposite of the way most music works -- with each
element consciously coordinated with every other element, combined in a seamless whole.
But Machover believes that if the “instruments” are subtle enough and encourage
particular kinds of playful interaction, he will be able to create out of disconnected
fragments something resonant and resourceful....
Beginning July 23, the 65th Street lobby of Juilliard School in Manhattan will be
transformed with a network of triangular scaffolds; pods and cacoons will house
Machover’s high-tech instruments. About 125 people will enter at a time, and will be
given about 50 minutes to explore the environment...
The random and unexpected input from these various cells of sound will then be combined
with other sonic material according to meticulously established rules and will
“performed” in Juilliard’s Morse Hall for the same audience that helped create it.
The 50-minute opera will reach its climax with a live hook-up to the Internet, where
sounds will be produced by “instruments” on the Brain Opera Web Page, created by mouse
clicks from surfers around the world. These improvisatory rhythms and melodies will be
sent into Lincoln Center, merged into the performance in progress and then sent back out
over the Web.
The scale of the enterprise is impressive -- with performances taking place 8 times a
day for 2 weeks -- but Machover’s previous compositions have also explored the interface
between technology and tradition, chance and calculation, entertainment and art.
“The Brain Opera” will be creating a kind of hyper-instrument, as each of the players on
the Net and in the wired lobby of Juilliard become a small part of a grand communal
instrument.
So this will be a vast experiment. Can a combination of randomness and calculation
create something that is more that the sum of its parts, or something less?
If it fails, an audience will be able, at the very least, to play with some of the most
unusual toys yet invented. If it works, there will be magic in the web of it.”
David Thirteen
"My name is Spinner..."