Abstract

Performance multimedia is a live, in the moment, real-time experience for the performers and the audrence; it defies the limits of recorded documentation. It is a large multidimensional theatrical event unliket he small personal-sizdee sktopm ultimedia bundlef ound on a CD-ROM. A person in the audience at one of my performance multimedia events can choose to pay attention to any one of many elements happening simultaneously. They can look at the live musicians and/or dancers performing on the stage. They can watch me in the pit in front of the stage working with one or more of a collection of multimedia instruments including synthesizers, a laser animation system, computers, a video camera, a video genlock, video monitors, and an audio mixer. They can observe my small monitors and follow my decision-making process as I mix one of my precomposed video streams with my camera images of the live performers as they are digitized and processed by the computer. They can view the resultant mixed images on the large projection screen or any of the multiple large video monitors on each side of the projection screen. They can focus in on any one of those elements, view a number of them simultaneously, or alternate their focus and perspective at will.

• Ron Pellegrino (U.S.A.)  President, Electronic Arts Productions; Ph.D. in music com­position, theory, and philosophy from the University of Wisconsin in 1968. Pioneer and leading exponent of affordable emerging electronic technology in music and the dynamic arts since 1967. Composer, electronic arts researcher, and performance artist with a focus on visual music, psychophysics, and performance multimedia. Designer and director of electronic arts facilities and pro­grams at U.S. universities and corporations since 1967. Located since 1972 in the San Francisco Bay Area, the global center of multimedia. Author of two trend-setting books: The Electronic Arts of Sound and Light (Van Nostrand Reinhold, 1983), the first book to take an integrated, multi­media view of electronic instruments in the arts; and An Electronic Studio Manual (Ohio State University College of the Arts, 1969), the first published book on the modern music synthesizer. Has also authored over 40 articles on the electronic arts. Producer of over 450 public events interna­tionally at major universities and performance spaces,art and science museums,and festivals of music and perfor­mance arts.           onpellegrinoselectronicartsproductions.org

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