Real Time and Unreal Time: Expression in Distributed Performance

Abstract

“Real time” indicates that the actions of a computer system take place at the same time as events in the environment to which the system is responding. The expressivity of an interactive multimedia system is directly related to its real-time operation: the aesthetic qualities of ensemble performance or a call-and-response interplay between human and machine forces are changed dramatically when there is a significant delay to the computer's output. At the same time that some artistic opportunities are closed off, however, new ones emerge. In particular, this article will explore the spaces made available through unreal time – those latencies between the immediacy of ensemble interaction and delays so long as to be outside of any kind of “real-time” performance – the range between about 20 and 2,000 milliseconds. A discussion of these latencies, as encountered in a composition staged in distributed performance over Internet2, closes the article.

Acknowledgments

The Technophobe & the Madman was created by a commission from the New York State Council on the Arts to Harvestworks, Inc., Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute and New York University. Thanks go to Carol Parkinson of Harvestworks for her work on the production. Photographs of the performance were taken by Chia-nan Yen.