Archeology of multimedia

ABSTRACT

The rapid evolution of technology and the processing aspects of some contemporary art forms make maintenance and re-fruition of a number of past masterpieces a difficult task. This is especially true of multimedia installations, with multiple audio and video sources coordinated through some control device, which also accounts for user interaction issues. So, it is not inappropriate to speak of "archeology of multimedia" in the case of the remise-en-oeuvre of an installation. This paper describes a complete example of archeology of multimedia. In particular, the art exhibit is the reprise of the first truly multimedia show of the electronic era: Le Corbusier's Poême électronique, displayed at the World Exhibition in Brussels in 1958. The show, conceived for the Philips Pavilion and consisting of a black&white video, color light ambiances, music moving over sound routes, visual special effects, has never been reprised after the end of the exhibition. The Poême électronique has been entirely reconstructed after a philological investigation through image archives, project sketches and technical documentation from Philips and then delivered in two virtual reality settings. Moreover, two aspects of the project are worth being abstracted from the design and realization of this specific reconstruction and contribute to the design, pre-visualization and fruition of novel contemporary artworks: a language for the description of the control score and an architecture design for the integration of several media sources. The language and the architecture, with a sketch of a friendly interface, are illustrated at the end of the paper.

REFERENCES

• 1: ADA Acoustic Design Ahnert, Berlin: EASE Software 4.1, (http://www.ada-acousticdesign.de)
• 2: http://www.audiosynth.com
• 3: Bernard, J. The music of Edgar Varêse, Yale UP, New Heaven and London, 1987.
• 4: Bianchini, L., Casali, V., Lupone M., Varese-Le Corbusier. Scene di un pensiero in rivolta: Ricostruzione del Poême Electronique, (in Italian), Proceedings of ICMC 00, Berlin, 2000.
• 5: Giorgio C. Buttazzo, Hard Real-time Computing Systems: Predictable Scheduling Algorithms And Applications (Real-Time Systems Series), Springer-Verlag Telos, 2004
• 6: Kim Cascone, The Aesthetics of Failure: "Post-Digital" Tendencies in Contemporary Computer Music, Computer Music Journal, v.24 n.4, p.12-18, December 2000 [doi>10.1162/014892600559489]
• 7: Depocas A., Ippolito J., Jones C. (editors), Permanence Through Change: The Variable Media Approach, The Solomon R. Guggenheim Foundation, New York, and The Daniel Langlois Foundation for Art, Science, and Technology, Montreal, 2003.
• 8: Agostino Di Scipio, Systems of Embers, Dust, and Clouds: Observations after Xenakis and Bru¨n, Computer Music Journal, v.26 n.1, p.22-32, January 2002 [doi>10.1162/014892602753633524]
• 9: Dobson R., ffitch J., Tazelaar K., Valle A., Lombardo V., Varêse's Poême Electronique regained: evidence from the VEP project, Proceedings ICMC, Barcelona, 2005, 29--35.
• 10: Forsyth M., Buildings for Music. The Architect, the Musican, and the Listener from Seventeenth Century to Present Day, Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 1985.
• 11: https://java3d.dev.java.net/ (last visited 25 May 2006)
• 12: Journal of New Music Research, 30:4, Special Issue on Preserving Electroacoustic Music, Swets & Zeitlinger, 2001.
• 13: http://www.ogre3d.org/, (last visited 25 May 2006).
• 14: Petit, J. Le Corbusier. Le Poême Electronique. Edition Le Minuit, Paris, 1958.
• 15: Polfreman R., Sheppard D., Dearden I., Re-Wired: Reworking 20th Century Live Electronics for today, Proceedings of ICMC 05, Barcelona, Spain, 2005.
• 16: Stringari C., Installations and problems of preservation, in Hummelen, IJ., Sillé, D. (editors) Modern Art: Who Cares?, Foundation for the Conservation of Modern Art/ Netherlands Institute for Cultural Heritage, 1999, Amsterdam, 272--281.
• 17: Treib, M. Space calculated in seconds. Princeton University Press, Princeton, NJ, USA, 1996.
• 18: Varêse, E. "The Liberation of Sound", in Boretz, Benjamin e Cone, Edward T. (eds.) Perspectives on American Composers, New York, Norton, 1971, 25--33.
• 19: Matthew Wright , Adrian Freed , Ali Momeni, OpenSound Control: state of the art 2003, Proceedings of the 2003 conference on New interfaces for musical expression, May 22-24, 2003, Montreal, Quebec, Canada
• 20: Xenakis Y., Vreedenburgh C.G.J., Bouma A.L., Ligtenberg, F.K., Duyster H.C., Kalff L.C., Tak W., de Bruin S.L. "Le Pavillon Philips à l'Exposition Universelle de Bruxelles 1958", Revue Technique Philips, Tome 20, 1--3, 1958.
• 21: Xenakis, Y. Musique. Architecture. Casterman, Paris, 1976.
• 22: Zouhar V., Lorenzy R., Musil T., Zmölnig, J., Höldrich, R., "Hearing Varêse's Poême électronique inside a virtual Philips Pavilion", Proceedings of ICAD 05, Limerick, Ireland, July 6-9, 2005.

INDEX TERMS

Primary Classification:
  H. Information Systems
  H.5 INFORMATION INTERFACES AND PRESENTATION (I.7)
      H.5.1 Multimedia Information Systems
          Subjects: Artificial, augmented, and virtual realities

Additional Classification:
  D. Software
  D.3 PROGRAMMING LANGUAGES
      D.3.4 Processors
          Subjects: Run-time environments

  H. Information Systems
  H.5 INFORMATION INTERFACES AND PRESENTATION (I.7)
      H.5.5 Sound and Music Computing
          Subjects: Signal analysis, synthesis, and processing; Methodologies and techniques

  I. Computing Methodologies
  I.3 COMPUTER GRAPHICS
      I.3.7 Three-Dimensional Graphics and Realism
          Subjects: Color, shading, shadowing, and texture; Virtual reality

General Terms:
Design, Human Factors, Languages, Theory

Keywords:
Poême électronique, digital media preservation and reconstruction, multimedia authoring