Abstract
Keywords: VR performance, virtual reality, trumpet performance, spatial music
Telepresence is an eight-minute, 8.2 channel surround sound VR performance experience where audience members are seated in rotating chairs in the center of the sound system and performance space, each wearing an Oculus Go VR HMD, as a trumpet player performs around them. In this paper, we explore the relationships between culture, presence and choreography, and how they are constantly in feedback with mediated technologies. This is followed by our methodology, which outlines the musical composition and sound choreography, and the technical and artistic development of VR components. Lastly, we conclude with artistic reflections based on our 17 performances from ourselves as creators, our creative collaborators and audience members.
- Kiran Bhumber is a media artist, composer, musician and educator based in Vancouver, Canada. Kiran constructs interactive installations and performance systems that allow performers and audiences to engage with themes relating to cultural memory, embodiment and nostalgia. She has performed and presented her works throughout North America, Asia, Europe and Australia including conferences and festivals such as MUTEK, The International Symposium on Electronic (ISEA), The Toronto International Electroacoustic Symposium, Vancouver International Jazz Festival, International Conference on Live Coding, and New Interfaces for Musical Expression (NIME). Kiran holds an MA in Media Arts, a Certificate in World Performance Studies at the University of Michigan and a Bachelor of Music from the University of British Columbia.
- Nancy Lee is an interdisciplinary media artist, filmmaker and electronic music curator. Nancy recently directed a VR 360 video dance film Tidal Traces” produced by the National Film Board of Canada which has been screened at Mutek, SXSW, and Cannes Film Festival. Nancy is a co-founder of electronic music and art collective Chapel Sound – a collective that has supporting emerging artists in Vancouver for the last 6 years. This year, Nancy coproduced CURRENT: Feminist Electronic Art Symposium, a 5day multidisciplinary and intersectional music and electronic art symposium working with women and non-binary artists. Supported by BC Arts Council and Canada Council of the Arts, Nancy has performed and presented her work at Vancouver International Jazz Festival, New Forms Festival, International Symposium for Electronic Art (Vancouver & Durban), International Electroacoustic Music Festival, the conference New Interfaces for Musical Expression (Australia), and The International Conference on Live Coding. Nancy is a 2018 YWCA Women of Distinction Nominee for Art, Cultural & Design and is named one of BC’s Most Influential Women in STEM for 2018.
Full text (PDF) p. 355-362
We acknowledge that this project took place on the unceded, traditional and ancestral lands of the Squamish, Tsleil-Waututh, and Musqueam peoples. We want to thank DB Boyko and Western Front Society (Roisin Adams, Aram Bajakian, Caitlin Jones, Ben Wilson and Lief Hall) for producing this project. We also want to thank Basically Good Media Lab (Maria Lantin, Alan Goldman and Sean Arden) at Emily Carr University of Art and Design, CreativeBC, Province of British Columbia and Canada Council for the Arts for supporting this research. Lastly, we want to thank our wonderful creative team and collaborators for making this project possible: JP Carter, Laine Butler, Ian Lavery, Emmalena Fredriksson, Andie Lloyd, Michael Fowler, Eli Muro, Jevan Crittenden, Sarah Genge and Jelissa Classics.