The Jungle: A Multichannel Drama
(2021-22)
In Collaboration with Xingmei Zhou
Embedded Files
Agony and euphoria are just two faces of a coin that is 'insanity'.
Agony and euphoria are just two faces of a coin that is 'insanity'.
KEYWORDS:
Live Multichannel; Immersive Installation; BBC Audio Orchestrator
The Jungle: A Multichannel Drama discusses humanity's descent from reason to chaos. Staged through a human traveler's perspective, the dramatic journey into a rich, exotic foliage finds the protagonist engulfed by a sea of animal growls, murmurs, occasional ominous clicking, and gradually transported to an inner space where only they themselves can hear their exclamations and sighs that get closer and closer to a beast's.
Does the protagonist experience the extreme pain of feeling dejected or heartfelt elation of freedom instead? No one knows, perhaps, not even themselves; agony and euphoria are just two faces of a coin that is "insanity".
Special thanks to Dr. Hans Tammen, who kindly featured The Jungle as a case study in his correspondence to the BBC MakerBox Forum, for his tech support and guidance on musicianship.
Live performance of The Jungle: A Multichannel Drama for the Spring 2023 Interactive Arts Performance Series, presented at the Frederick Loewe Theater at NYU on March 7, 2022.
Composing The Jungle
Composing The Jungle
This 3-part piece discusses a journey as the human perspective succumb to the chaos where reason is all but a forgotten civilization.
The human traveler finds themselves in a rich and exotic foliage (Part 1), gets lost in the sea of animal growls, murmurs and sometimes ominous clicking (Part 2), and is gradually transported to their inner space where only themselves can hear their exclamations and sighs that get closer and closer to a beast’s (Part 3).
The background drone, a mimicry of rich natural ambiance, is produced with AM/FM/granular synths in Pigments 3 (by Arturia). Animal SFXs are sourced from sound libraries and open-source recordings/foleys, while human vocalizations are performed and recorded by the composers.
Ambience synth track for The Jungle.
A stereo mix-down of the ambience and multichannel tracks of The Jungle. Courtesy of Xingmei Zhou.
Setting up the Audio Orchestrator
Setting up the Audio Orchestrator
Developed by BBC R&D, the Audio Orchestrator is an online audio distributor tool that can build an ever-evolving spatial speaker array with the built-in speakers of mobile devices in the audience.
During the performance, the Audio Orchestrator sends 10 randomized tracks to the connected devices scattered in the audience according to preset rules, bringing the audience factor into the interactive soundscape of The Jungle.
Performing at the Spring 2023 IAPS.Members of the audience reported having optimized immersion and good bass response. Regrettably, such immersion could not be experienced in the performance recording (see above) as the tracks from the Audio Orchestrator were barely audible outside of the closely-knit audience cluster.
Performance Design
Performance Design
For better auditory experience, it is recommended that The Jungle be performed in a small, indoor venue with multichannel playback and enough free room for the participants to move around safely.
The physical speaker array delivers the background track, which should be re-mixed for the specific playback system (e.g., 7.1.2 for performing at the Frederick Loewe Theater).
The multichannel audio tracks of animal sounds and human vocalizations are randomly assigned to the audience members' mobile devices through the Audio Orchestrator. The audience members are instructed to walk around the venue, either in random motion or adjusting their itinerary based on their assigned track content and those of the other participants’.
It is also recommended that the number of multichannel tracks be adjusted with reference to the number of participants.
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