Online Interactive Sound Experience and Collective Decision Making
Robots
// Collaborative Work with Tat Sham
This project is a visual novel sound experience based on the play Rossum’s Universal Robots. The audience participates in discussions and collective decision-making, influencing the course of the experience. The experience intends to question the nature of human and artificial beings. It also intends to allow participants to experience the true nature of democracy, having equal rights of expressing their views and the right to make decisions for the collective. The audience shall be divided into two groups, humans and robots, according to an initial “personality test”. The story progresses through decision-making (votes and polls) through information given to the audiences, as well as discussions leading to a vote to decide how the characters in the play behaves.
In the sound/music composition part, individualized auditory experiences would suit the theatre’s theme. Generative Music Compositions, with sound parameters controlled by decisions and input by audiences (such as votes and text input, or even sound input), shall be designed to create the perception of the effect and consequences of individuals’ actions. On the other hand, each individual’s decisions shall affect one another, taking the data from all participants, they shall collectively alter the sound they experience.
03.2021
R. U. Human / 我唔係機械人
// Collaborative Work with Inspire Workshop
https://www.artsgodigital.hk/project/r-u-human
Merging theatre with online adventure game, R. U. Human? invites audience to immerse themselves in a space where the virtual meets the real, while reflecting on subjects related to humanity and technology. The interactive performance, which takes place on online conferencing platform Gather.town, is based on classic sci-fi play R.U.R. (Rossum’s Universal Robots) by Czech playwright Karel Čapek. As part of the work, the real-time data collected during the performance will undergo sonification to accompany a live performance video.
In face of robot rebellion, the audience acts as the factory’s key decision maker. They interact with the characters and objects in the form of a virtual avatar to advance the story and usher in different endings. At the end, the participants return to Karel Čapek’s reality to explore issues and ideas in the play from the playwright’s perspective.
06.2021