Fantaventura VR

Project
FantaVentura is an interactive, psychedelic music VR experience created for the German band ‘Die Fantastischen Vier’.
The VR experience uses Leap Motion hand-tracking, interactive sound, volumetric video, animation, 360 film, to tell a story that is as much about time and aging, relationships, trust and loyalty as it is about members of the band dropping acid on a tropical beach 25 years ago, and changing the way they saw the world.   

Music
FantaVentura was the result of another creative collaboration with Mike Robbins in a Virtual Reality project. I focused in reinterpreting interactively existing music, reorganising it in a completely new VR experience. The challenge was the creative constrain of using sound elements inspired by the specific piece of music, trying to stay as close to the original. In some cases, literally by using sounds coming directly from the composition or in other by using sound processes and reusing them in an interactive manner, or in others by sounds inspired by the original piece. The creative sound creation in a psychedelic inspired setting was a creative playground:  

  • The sound of a closing door with the echo of a snare.
  • The sound of frantic string orchestra produced by flying seahorses
  • Iconic synth sound used for the beam produced by the user
  • The sound of soap bubble popping while planets were casually exploded by the user

Another part of the work, was the use of ambisonic sound for the 360 videos. The attempt was to keep the voice In a simple manner, but at the same time, enhance the sounds in a surrounding environment using some contemporary technics of perception in spatialisation. This part of the job was rather technical in order to keep clarity in the voice while being creative add some new elements.

A 6DOF version for HTC Vive is available for download on Steam and a 360 version can be seen on the Telekom Magenta app.

Exhibitions:
September 2019 – IFA, Berlin, Germany
September 2019 – IAA, Frankfurt, Germany
January – August 2020 – Stadtpalais Museum für Stuttgart, Germany

Cancelled due to COVID-19:
March 2020 – CPH:DOX, Copenhagen, Denmark
May 2020 – FMX, Stuttgart, Germany
June 2020 – VRHAM!, Hamburg, Germany

Produced by:
High Road Stories
Radar Media
gebrüder beetz filmproduktion
Musikwirtschaft GmbH

Fish swimming casually at the beach while looked by an eye inside a hovering bubble
Project team with the Fanta4 band members in the presentation at IFA exhibition, Berlin

The Sun VR

Project
A meditative VR experience based on the series of paintings ‘The Sun’ by painter Edvard Munch.

It is one episode in the 3-part VR series ‘The Master’s Vision’, produced by gebrüder beetz filmproduktion.

The 360° version is available on the Arte website and ARTE360 app in English, German, and French.

Exhibitions:
Sept 2018 – Bergen International Film Festival, Bergen, Norway
March 2019 – CPH:DOX Interactive, Copenhagen, Denmark
July 2019 – Virtual Worlds, Munich, Germany
Summer 2019 – Munch Centre, Løten, Norway

Monk by the Sea VR

Project
A Virtual Reality experience inspired by the painting ‘Monk by the Sea’ by the German Romantic painter Caspar David Friedrich.

Music
The VR experience gives us the opportunity get inside the painting and revisit the place near the sea that the painting is originally representing.
The music is a simple chamber orchestra piece yet with a rather refined orchestration.
A virtual orchestra surrounds the listener, who can focus on different instruments of the orchestration according to her position and direction.
A flying bird reveals progressively transforms the gray sky into a colourful. The speed of the birds movement changes the pitch of a harmonica sound.
The installation was it was presented at the National Gallery of Berlin, near the original painting of Friedrich.

It is one episode of the 3-part VR series ‘The Master’s Vision’, produced by gebrüder beetz filmproduktion.

The 360° version is available on the Arte website and ARTE360 app in English, German, and French.

Exhibitions:
March 2019 – CPH:DOX Interactive, Copenhagen, Denmark
April – June 2019 – Alte Nationalgalerie, Berlin, Germany
July 2019 – Virtual Worlds, Munich, Germany
December 2019 – May 2020 – National Palace Museum, Chiayi, Taiwan


Milli meets the Arts

The story is the second part of Milli’s adventures. It comes in the form of a free interactive and personalized web book that aims to introduce preschoolers to the world of fine arts.
Through four chapters, children are learning about Impressionism, Expressionism, Cubism and Surrealism.
The Music reflects the equivalent music esthetic tendencies, also reflecting sonically those esthetic schools.

Videos

Introduction
Menu Music
Chapter 1 – Impressionism
Chapter 1 – Impressionism – colour combinations
Chapter 2 – Expressionism
Chapter 2 – Expressionism – timbre melody
Chapter 3 – Cubism
Chapter 4 – Surrealism
Chapter 4 – Surrealism – surreal combinations
Chapter 5 – Finale

And if…

acousmatic interactions

Program notes:

«[Tweedledee and Tweedledum took Alice by hand] and led her up to where the Red King was sleeping…
“He’s dreaming now,” said Tweedledee,
“and what do you think he’s dreaming about?”…
“[He is] dreaming about you!” Tweedledee exclaimed, clapping his hands triumphantly.
“And if he left off dreaming about you, where do you suppose you’d be?”.
“Where I am now, of course,” said Alice.
“Not you!” Tweedledee retorted contemptuously.
“You’d be nowhere. Why, you’re only a sort of thing in his dream!”>

Through the Looking-Glass, and What Alice Found There (1871) – Lewis Carroll

And if (s)he left off dreaming about you… is the third part of my triptych of music works based on feedback; feedback as a sound; feedback as a principle of composition.
An algorithm, or a genetic code, gives birth to a live music organism, that I call an “Ephemeron”.
For this work, Ephemeron’s algorithm is planted through the internet on another computer; a computer being on another place and another city.
A listener is there
A music organism is born to this other space;
the listener is listening and reacting
and by reacting, is acting upon the organism
a conversation is established through the internet;
the music organism communicates with the listener who is reacting spontaneously to the sound.
The conversation is recorded, cut, reworked, re-composed
this is the fruit of this re-composed conversation.
And if I left off dreaming about Ephemeron, where does it suppose it would be?

Photo by Kenneth Rougeau

Concerts

  1. 3 June 2016 – Cinema Concert of “Art & Science Days 2016”, Bourges.
  2. 26 March 2016 – Cicada Consort Music Marathon, in the University of Alabama, Moody Concert Hall
  3. 18 January 2015 – “Electroacoustic Music Days 2014”, Rethimno, Greece

Milli the Snail

The young users are following an entertaining and educative story in an interactive way, through beautiful images, interactive orchestral music and sounds design made out of orchestral instruments.

Awards

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BabyMachine VR

Project
A small Virtual Reality music experience created as part of hack/jam Patchathon of Nordic Game Conference. The work was created within few days within the Virtual Reality environment of the software Patch.XR that gives the opportunity to creators to directly program sound and visuals in VR.

The project was as part of my research activity in music and VR, while learning and testing a new Virtual Reality programming app which is still in development, with direct interaction of the developing team to improve the program and do user testing on the spot.

Music-Visuals
The music VR experience is a study of some of the capabilities of the VR software Patch.XR. I created a grotesque nightmare for the user, both the visuals and music, with a score composed and orchestrated
in space. Increasingly over-sized babies are turning cogs of machine while the sounds control their rotation speed.