Document:Q11560

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A Soa(pOp)era for Laptops.----

The piece consists of four laptops on radio controlled cars. The laptops are mounted on custom made loudspeaker-trailers. The piece uses voice recognition and text-to-speech as well as max programming. The four vehicles are essentially performers. The work involves the four characters talking to each other or singing. Sinclair and Hovagimyan also perform with the characters, by playing guitar or talking to the characters. A pitch tracking software allows the laptops to listen to a string of notes and sing along. The characters respond to each other via keywords that trigger responses thus affecting natural conversation. The characters cars are controlled by perfomers. The performances were concieved of as unique and evolutive. The artists created new content and programming structures for each performance. As a consequence there are several difference titles for this performance work denoting the different developments. The alternate titles are: Exercises in Talking and Les Jaseurs. ---- A Soapopera for iMacs. ----
The piece consists of four iMacs sitting on found furniture in a salon like setting . The piece uses voice recognition and text-to-speech as well as max programming. There are 4 characters Ralph, Princess, Kathy and Fred. They talk to each other. The conversations are rather mundane. They talk about cars, sex, shopping, politics and food. They also burst into song at odd moments. Each computer responds to spoken keywords by the other computers or a viewer. Often the words are misunderstood and the conversation takes off in bizarre directions.