The MusicMaker's Hacklab is an intensive weeklong collaborative environment, where Hacklab fellows, selected via open call, experiment and exchange to bring new musical ideas to life. Ahead of the Hacklab, two Input talks open to the public, are given by diverse experts in artistic creation and remote collaboration. This year's speakers are Jamie Fenton and Ava Ansari. Hacklab fellows present then their work on day seven at a finale event.
Theme: Off The Fovea
We were already living in the metaverse; we just hadn’t seen it clearly. Now, restricted in our ability to meet together in shared physical spaces, our vision of the virtual expands. Even as online spaces threaten to produce greater alienation and accelerated destruction, we have an opportunity to hack our own presence there. The fovea is the center of vision, the area of sight on which the eye’s perception concentrates. But it’s not a complete picture. Looking off the fovea is a practice of removing this center of focus, making space for new connections on a creative, technical, and collaborative level.
For the 2021 Hacklab, a group of Hacklab fellows selected via open call will work together remotely to explore new means of collaboration and performance over distances. As in past years, the Hacklab will proceed as usual for an intensive six-day programme, followed by a performance presentation in the festival on the seventh day. Solutions to dealing with distance might be technologically simple or intense.
This year, since we can’t meet in person, we hope to facilitate more intensive virtual collaborations and conversations and experiment with tools that allow shared work and exchange. As we welcome participants from multiple time zones and hemispheres, the co-hosts will also be available twice daily and for additional collaborative input as needed, so that Hacklab fellows are not obligated to meet in the middle of the night.
The performance space this year will be presented with all Hacklab fellows remote (co-hosts will be physically present at a workspace in Berlin and at the final performance venue on day seven). We'll nonetheless experiment with novel mechanisms for online audiences. Media might include live coding, virtual spaces, puppetry and object theater, transmitted musical events, radio, data, dance, photography and video, robotics, singing. We can employ VR, AR/xR, OSC, DMX, MIDI, chatrooms, semaphores, gestures, smoke signals. These will be conveyed in a performance space with live video, sound, and light, reconfigured in such a way that artists can playfully explore empty spaces on the venue's stage. A limited number of viewers will be physically present in the audience, depending on prevailing hygiene rules, with an additional virtual experience online.