Last Class Meeting---beginning of new projects and possibilities

We had our last I2 class on May 1. We talked about how successful the concert was on Saturday (despite the technical difficulties) and enjoyed new group project presentations. I thought that this concluding class was one of the most inspiring meetings we've had. Each group had such unique ideas and showed a high level of collaboration. In this blog I would like to share my response to each project.

Team Green
This team had a theme: loneliness. They presented a great combination of text (poem), moving image, and piano improvisation. They told us there was supposed to be a dance improvisation from another site simultaneously to go along with everything else but due to some technical failure they could not have the dancer's image. I thought that the idea was great, and although they could not have the dancer's part, what they had shown us was inspiring.

Team Red
Their project was titled "Friend for Life" and it was animation and story telling in Chinese intended for children. I really enjoyed the animated characters that were original and the story that was very simple but touching: a lonely character finds a friend for life.

Team Orange
The whole class got really excited about this team's idea! Their idea was to use skype connection among them (three people), each going to an ordinary place on campus making it an extraordinary one by communicating through skype and experiencing surrounding sounds and images through a computer screen. Because of a technical problem they were unable to have the three way online connection but Nick, one of the team members went outside. With him on the large screen, he took the class to a whole new world; going into a library, elevator, talking to a random person... Yes, those things were no longer mundane then. What a simple idea, yet how incredible the effect is!

One of the conclusion statements by Dr. Gilbert was memorable and I believe this notion is what all arts and history are based on. He shared with us his creating process, process that involves time, sometimes a split second, and sometimes years. He told us that some of the images he used in his latest movie were from the last project. He told us that over years old ideas provided basis for new ideas and now he has ideas for the future. This process is true for many of us including great composers in the history of music. Beethoven wrote Choral Fantasy and later he wrote his 9th Symphony based on Choral Fantasy. Liszt was inspired by Beethoven's symphonies and transcribed all of them into piano music. Nicolle and I used the materials and concepts we already had and produced our Therapeutic I2 project.

Through I2 experiences, I noticed the unlimited amount of imagination and endless possibilities by working together as a group. Collaboration in I2 is perhaps a new means to make the world smaller and better place to live. I would like to conclude this term with the message Nicolle and I have at the end of our project movie, "Internet2 can bring people together. Connect the world with Internet2."

Therapeutic Internet2---group project

Nicolle and I discussed our possible ideas for a group project. There were so many possibilities! We wanted to:

1. Involve people (concept of our April 28 concert)
2. Use materials that already existed
3. Do something with photography (Nicolle's passion)
4. Do something with music (my passion)
5. Utilize I2 to unify all of the above points
6. Create a movie that tells our story

As we shared our own experiences, we found that we both were involved in therapeutic programs at hospitals. Nicolle had taken pictures of artworks created by patients, and I had performed piano music for patients. So we came up with the concept of therapeutic use of I2, where patients can interact with artists and musicians from another site without having to leave their hospitals. I2 connection can occur among patients as well providing them with a whole different dimension.

So we made a movie, using still images of patients' artworks Nicholle had taken before and my performance video from earlier in the semester. The movie can be viewed here: http://homepages.nyu.edu/~mk870/therapy.html

Nicolle and I are hoping to continue with this project since we believe it can be done. Our knowledge of I2 will some day help enrich patients' culture and life!

Art, Music, Dance, and Love: Internet2 Concert

Finally our biggest project of the semester took place on April 28, 2007 at Frederic Loewe Theatre in NYC. It was a concert to celebrate two important professors at NYU: Dr. Denu Ghezzo who was retiring from his long teaching career at the university and Dr. Ron Mazurek who passed away unexpectedly two days before the concert.

The concert was very beautiful and touching. Everyone participated in his or her best way and contributed to the success of the event. I learned many things that day as one of the camera crew, from taping all the cables down to the floor so that nobody would trip over them to setting a camera so that people would not be walking in front of it but behind it. I realized how much dedication and concentration it needed to set up the audio and visual system in the theatre. We were constantly running across and in and out of the theatre, trying to solve problems.

Yes, the biggest lesson I learned that day was that there would always be problems. But important thing is to go along with those problems, if they are unsolvable. The V Brick at UCI failed to work that day, preventing us from having the high speed I2 connection. Although we had to change our program and we could not have an interactive session between audiences in NYU and UCI, our effort to do the best we could then made the event still highly valuable. I believe that the audience enjoyed the improvisations very much.

I was in charge of interviewing people as they entered the theatre and documenting overall the event. I was paired up with Nicolle and I think we worked very well together that evening. When we started to interview, asking people how they knew Dr. Ghezzo and to share their memories, at first they were somewhat hesitant to be interviewed. However, when we started asking people to congratulate Dr. Ghezzo, they were more than happy to share their words with us. In the end we had about 2/3 of the audience in the video. During the concert, I focused on the audience to capture their response to the performances by walking around the theatre. It was incredible to know how involved the audience was to every single performance, and to realize how much energy it provided to the whole production. I suggested to Nicolle to go backstage to take closeup video of the performers from behind, remembering some documentation movies I've seen of stage productions, which I thought was very effective.

Yes, we were exhausted from being there since 9am and dealing with unfamiliar problems after problems, but our facial expressions were filled with proud and achievement. We were a team and no longer a bunch of aloof graduate students. All the music, art, and dance we had that night were empowered by people's strong love and appreciation for those two important professors.

After all of this, I think now I am an expert on setting up a camera as well as taping the cables down and removing the tape from cables!

On Sight Reading

I love the fact that we can interact with each other inside and outside the class time and try to answer each other's quetions. The other day I ran into Tom Beyer and he gave great tips on sight reading. He overheard me at one of the improv sessions when I was expressing to another student my difficulties of improvising and sight reading.


He said the key to improve my sight reading skills is to devote a certain amount of time everyday only to sight reading. Stopping everytime I make a mistake is habitual, he said, and instead of practicing in a right way, I've been practicing in a wrong way: stopping in the middle of the music. Of course if I am perfecting a piece of music I need to stop and practice passages over and over again till they are right, but practicing sight reading is different from perfecting a piece. I told him also that my eyes cannot capture many notes at once, they tend to only look at only a few and that my fingers often cannot measure intervals without my eyes looking at them.

So he gave me three main practice methods according to my needs.
1. Read a new piece of music and never stop no matter what happens
2. Read a single line of notes to expand my horizontal view
3. Play something I know in the dark

These are great insights and I have been devoting about 30 minutes everyday since. It's going to take some time and I will have to be patient with myself; however I believe that this practice menu will help me enhance my sight reading abilities, as Tom Beyer assured it would.

I have noticed that people who are great sight readers are also great improvisers. This may be because they can already hear in their head what's coming while they read a written score. So I hope by practicing sight reading I will also help develop my improvisation abilities. I look forward to the progress as well as the process in weeks, months, and years to come.

Audience Becomes Art

In our I2 class we have been discussing and sharing ideas for the April 28th concert between NYU and UCI. One of the plans is to film the people as they enter the Loewe Theatre and show the images on the main screen during the concert to include them as part of the production.

When I was reading the New York Times a couple of days ago this article caught me eyes: "Art's Audiences Become Artworks Themselves." It tells about an artist who created artworks with the same concept. Thomas Struth's works at Marian Goodman Gallery show photographs of spectators at the museum looking at various artworks. Pictures are quite amusing; some crossing their arms, some listening closely to the audio guide, some taking pictures---all of them are unaware that they are being photographed.

How eye catching these works are! They provide a whole different perspective to the notion of visual art.

The article: http://www.nytimes.com/2007/04/10/arts/design/10stru.html

Art of Improvisation 3

Our first major improvisation session with UCI took place last Tuesday. The class was divided into two groups; one group worked from Tower Building on Lafayette Street and the other worked from Avery Room in the Bobst Library. The video conference connecting three sites was made possible by ichat. Improvisation between two NYU groups worked out wonderfully; there was great musical energy shared by synthesizer, piano, toy piano, flute,and voice. Although there seemed to be an audio problem between NY and California and thus the UCI dancers did not pick up on our music, I think the session was very successful, at least between two NYU groups.

So here I'm going to report my performance in the improvisation session. As I made a promise last week, I was able to fight of my fear and just start playing simple musical ideas on the toy piano. Some were good, others not so inspirational (and the great thing was that I could blame the toy piano for its unevenly constructed keys). So far so good. Then I went on to the real piano and started playing something...then it suddenly became so hard because the sounds were much more exposed than those of the toy piano. But I didn't stop trying there. I thought I would just forget about all the unintentional dissonances I was making and would just focus on the musical gesture. I concentrated on my imaginative phrases and sounds and just went for them. The outcome was not that great but I think I did very well for my first major improvisation session!

As I listened to the sounds of other musicians I noticed there are no right notes or right rhythms; they simply play what they felt at a given moment. Next class I am going to explore further on improvisation, maybe introduce some dancing as well, and try different directions to expand my possibilities of music making.

Multimedia Opera Production 2

So opera nowadays is getting more and more into using multimedia. Brooklyn Academy of Music introduced another multimedia "Magic Flute" with use of video images by a South African artist William Kentridge, as New York Times reports. Here is the description of the production in the article:

"The result is an exuberant dialogue between drawing and music, a three-dimensional work of art with video projected across and around the human figures onstange. Sometimes the animations echo the characters' thoughts; mathematical diagrams stand in for the teachings of Sarastro and his priests. Sometimes they reflect the music, with white lines reaching upward during a chorus, like fireworks. Sometimes they form antic glosses, suddenly coalescing into birds, a line, a dancing rhinoceros....Mr. Kentridges's "magic Flute" is based on the metaphor of the early camera, using the palette of a film negative, white on black, to reflect the opera's shifting presentation of good and evil."

As the technology advances it is quite common today to see musical works with mixture of different media. Many opera productions have attracted artists to collaborate. Opera is not just music; it has drama, dance, visual art, anything you can think of as a form of art. I am blown away every time I go to the Met to see an opera to find how creative the production can be. Opera is one huge art creation and there is no limit to how much more art it can contain. I am curious to see what direction opera is headed in the near future.

Article:
http://select.nytimes.com/gst/abstract.html?res=F40F17F63F5B0C7A8CDDAD0894DF404482

Art of Improvisation 2

During the last I2 class, we had a connection with UCI using V Brick and i chat connection between NYU, UCI, and Vancuver. As we discussed our possible issues and materials for April 28 I2 concert, we had a great improvisation session between NYU flutist and UCI dancer. I was inspired by the improvisation and wanted to participate, however I was not able to then. I was too shy to get up and start dancing. Why? I thought I was not going to do well and was afraid I would be lost in the middle of it. Part of me wanted to try and see what would happen, another part of me didn't want to humiliate myself. But at the end of class I realized that I disappointed myself, for not trying at all. Who cares if I don't do as well as I want to? Nobody but one perhaps: myself. It was not the crowd that was putting pressure on me then, but it was myself.

So I got to think about art of improvisation again. Maybe I need to try doing something simple, something within my capability. Act of trying is the first step and it must be contributing to creating of art already. First thing I should do is to overcome my fear. Next time I am given a chance, I will not worry about failing and will only focus on what I can do to make improvisation happen. I shall see how I succeed in the next class.

Multimedia Opera Production

From March 29 till April 1, 2007, NYU presented four performances of Mozart's opera, "Magic Flute" featuring the school's talented vocalists and instrumentalists. I attended the last performance and sat in the first row of the Loewe Theatre.

The production was innovative in that the singers sang while looking at the conductor through a monitor that was set in the middle of the theatre. There was no orchestra pit, so the orchestra was placed in the back of the stage behind the stage setting, completely invisible from the audience. I was surprised to learn later that there was a slight delay in the video and the singers needed to adjust their entrances accordingly. During the performance I was not aware of it. The singers must have practiced with the delay so that they knew how soon they had to start and end their phrases.

The production inspired me in terms of incorporating technology directly into the performance. In the same setting, the orchestra can be playing in another site. I would love to see some collaborations between vocalists and orchestras from different parts of the world using I2 connection. The Met singers with Vienna Philharmonic, Kirov Opera singers with NY Philharmonic, etc....all performing live from their hometowns!

Art of Improvisation

In last class, there was an interesting discussion on the value of improvisation. It made me think about the importance of improvisation as a musician, as it is certainly not my forte at this point.

John Crawford from UCI explained that a lot of preparation is required for an improvisation work. The aesthetic experience of an improvised work is to hear or see the unplanned and spontaneous things. But there is a structure to it, and improvisation happens within that structure.

Dr. Ghezzo from NYU commented that the art of improvisation has been lost in musical training nowadays and argued that it is a very important tradition that must be continued. He reminded us that great composers and performers of the past in Western music, such as Mozart, Beethoven, Schumann, among others were excellent improvisers as well.

What is the importance of improvisation? I looked it up in "The Art of Teaching" edited by Denes Agay and found an essay on the subject. Sylvisa Rabinof in her essay says "Improvisation is the embodiment of rhythm, melody, harmony, and form---the basic elements of music. It synthesizes the human factors that enter into the creative function: experience, imagination, intuition." She also explains, "One may ask whether this can produce great work; the answer is to be found in the achievements of the past. Equally significant is the fact that improvisation was not only used but taught."

Why is it that teaching students to improvise has been neglected? Rabinof says, "about a hundred years ago the art went into decline. Extemporization in the world of so-called serious music became neglected, it not lost." It is no surprise then, that I have never been taught to improvise. Although I feel that I am advanced enough to do some spontaneous playing at the piano, I am still hesitant to play by ear except very simple melodies and harmonies. The discussion on improvisation made me realize that there is something to be done, and every soon, I will find a way to teach myself how to improvise using more advanced melody, rhythm, harmony and form.

No More Albums?

The article on the New York Times on Monday, March 26, 2007 caught my eyes with the title, "The Album, a Commodity in Disfavor."

New rap and R&B trio, Candy Hill, has just signed a recording contract with Universal/Republic Records, however, they are not releasing a CD. They are only recording two songs and no album. The reason is obvious, listeners are buying fewer and fewer CD albums but buying more single songs in digital format. The article says, "Last year, digital singles outsold plastic CD's for the first time....buyers of digital music are purchasing singles over albums by a margin of 19 to 1." This does not surprise me because I can't remember myself when I bought an album (non-classical music) last time, except the time of the huge sale due to the closing of Tower Records. The trio artists have to keep their day jobs as they wait and see whether their two songs will become hits, the article reports.

The author explains how much the music industry is suffering.
"All this comes as the industry's long sales slide has been accelerating. Sales of albums, in either disc or digital form, have dropped more than 16 percent so far this year, a slide that executives attribute to an unusually weak release schedule and shrinking retail floor space fro music. Even though sales of individual songs---sold principally through iTunes---are rising, it has not been nearly enough to compensate.

Yet the author says that music executives are hopeful for the album sales in genres such as jazz and classical music as listeners will continue to buy music in a form of album because such music tends to be already album-length. I think that I will still continue to buy classical music CDs and rely less on digital music, just because the quality is still much better than MP3. But how many people are there who listen to jazz and classical music compared to those who listen to popular genres?

It's needless to say that most people listen to pop music. And here is the sad news: "Executives maintain that they must establish more lasting connections with fans who may well lose interest if forced to wait two years or more before their favorite artist releases new music." People want to find their favorite songs fast. This is like a trend in fashion. If you don't quickly respond to what's in style now, you will miss it completely because the next season will be introducing something different.

Ron Shapiro, an artist manager and former president of Atlantic Records explains in the article, "you have to create an almost hysterical pace to find hits to sell as digital downloads and ring tones that everybody's going to want. It's scary." Yes, I think it's scary as well. People are downloading songs at an incredibly fast speed and creators of songs simply cannot keep up.

So no more albums in the near future? We're already taken away the entertainment of browsing in music stores after Tower Records going out of business. I guess we will have to spend even more time in front of our computers looking for songs to buy...

The article:
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/03/26/business/media/26music.html?_r=1&oref=slogin

Instant Messenging

Back in college days, I was obsessed with ICQ and AOL Instant Messenger. Almost everyone who owned a computer was using one or the other to talk to others and I thought they were the coolest things ever. In fact, I often used ICQ to ask my roommate to go to a cafeteria with me although we were only a few feet apart from each other! I had fights with my boyfriends, had all-night long girls' talk with my friends, and chatted with old friends in Japan on ICQ and IM.

Then Skype was introduced. I have been using it to call my parents in Japan on their home phone without worrying about a high telephone bill. It's amazing that now we can ask librarians at our school questions online using IM and Yahoo! Messenger.

Wikipedia names the following as instant messenging programs: Net Messenger Service, AOL Instant Messenger, Escite/Pal, Gadu-Gadu, Google Talk, iChat, ICQ, Jabber, Qnext, QQ, Meetro, Skype, Trillian, Yahoo! Messenger and Rediff Bol Instant Messenger.

The major benefit of using instant messenging programs is their low cost. We simply need an internet connection and the rest is free (unless we're calling a regular phone, but it's still very inexpensive). Will we still have telephones a decade from now, or even half a decade? I still use a phone myself because it's handy and simple, but my telephone usage has decreased since I started using Skype. Well, I guess instant messenging cannot supersede cell phones in terms of convenience...for now.

Experience with Video Camera

In last Internet2 class I was in charge of filming the video conference between NYU and UCI. Main purpose of the conference was to exchange possible ideas for the Internet2 concert on April 28, 2007. While holding the camera and filming the entire class, I raised the following questions to myself.

1. How do I hold the camera (without a tripod) steadily?

I found holding the camera in my hand for a long period of time extremely difficult and not good for my pianist hands. I overcame this problem quickly by simply placing on a desk and adjusting the height slightly.

2. Who (or what) do I focus on?

I assumed that the camera should focus on the speaker for the most part. However, there were times when the speaker was pointing out something on the screen. Then I turned the camera to the screen so that we would know what he was explaining. Zooming in/out was difficult to control, since I never remembered which side to turn to to zoom in/out. I ended up switching back and forth, which would make the picture not smooth and thus should be avoided.

3. How do I want to frame the picture?

This was very challenging. While the connection was active with UCI, I filmed mainly the projected image. But when two students from our site improvised using voice and flute, collaborating with movements of the dancers from UCI, I did not know how to frame the scene. I wanted to capture both the movements from UCI and the music improvisation at NYU. I ended up filming parts of the improvisation and most of the dance movements.

4. When do I change tapes?

Another challenge was to know when to change tapes so that I would not miss any important scenes. For this I waited for moments of simple conversations between NYU and UCI rather than exchanges of raw materials and ideas and I quickly changed the tapes.

I realized that a camera played an extremely important role in creating multi media projects such as this Internet2 project of NYU and UCI. I would like to explore further the possibilities of a video camera and use it as an inspirational tool.

One Pianist Playing Two Pianos

This is an incredible project. It took a while for me to understand how it worked but this is really innovative. Lucas Porter receives his biweekly piano lessons at Acadia University in Nova Scotia from his teacher, Marc Durand who listens as Lucas plays his piano and gives him guidance from the Royal Conservatory of Music in Toronto. How does this work? Here is how. The teacher has two pianos, one is for himself, and the other one for his student 700 miles away. The piano has a built-in computer that catches every touch and every pedal action Lucas makes on his piano, and plays as if Lucas is actually there.

How close is this virtual piano playing that the teacher is listening to to the student's actual playing? I guess we would never find out, because we can't be at two places at the same time, but this innovative lesson certainly is contributing to long distance learning and use of technology.

http://musicpath.acadiau.ca/main.htm

Latency in a Real Orchestra?

Ann Doyle (program manager of the Internet2 arts and humanities) explains that latency in I2 sessions is similar to what musicians experience in delays of sounds from the front of the stage to the back in live performances, reported by Susan Briffith in her article, "Internet2 Links Dance, Music Performances".

This remark is very intriguing. Unfortunate for me as a pianist, I rarely get to play as a member of an orchestra thus I'm not certain whether this is true. However my limited experiences in an orchestra remind me of none. In addition, I've never experienced delays in sounds sitting in the audience at performances given by professional (and good) orchestras. Any orchestra players in our class? I'm quite suspicious of Ann Doyle's belief but it's worth finding out.

Article: http://www.case.edu/pubs/cnews/2002/10-10/internet2.html

Composition Contest Using I2

I found a very interesting project by Wheaton College in Norton, Massachusetts. Winners (high school and undergraduate students) of the composition contest received comments and coaching from professional composers via Internet2 on March 25, 2005. This was to help the young composers revise their works before the debut concert on June 1, 2005 and professional recording sessions. The concert was webcast live from Hulsey Recital Hall at the University of Alabama at Birmingham.

What an exciting contest!

The article reports, "In addition to receiving expert guidance, participants benefited from interacting with members of a community of practice, exposure to a variety of careers, and access a broad listening audience."

There are two important points here. One is "interacting." How great it is to be able to interact with fellow musicians and music admirers in remote sites! Interaction among musicians and audiences is a key to most I2 projects. One of the significances of I2 in performing arts is to connect different communities by sharing their creativity. Another important point is "broad audience." I cannot think of any musician/dancer/artist who does not seek more audience. I2 enables us artists to gain more exposure, which is crucial for career establishing.

The article can be found here: http://www.wheatoncollege.edu/IT_S/internet2/CI2

Infinite Creativity

Sometimes you get blown away by someone's creativity. Last night I experienced this "wow" moment watching the Academy Awards. In between the announcements of awards, they had small musical or dancing presentations. My favorite one was the human sound-effect choir where a choir made all sorts of sounds to well-known scenes of the popular movies that were projected on the large screen behind the choir. If I hadn't seen the TV screen and had just listened to the sounds, I would have had no doubt that they were of the original sound effects.

This presentation really amazed me for its originality and the ability of human voices. We have entered the stage where the extraordinary human talents and imagination meet technology, liberating our mind even further. It excites me when I think of the Academy Awards in 5, 10 years from now.

My imaginary I2 project

I attended a performing arts event on Feb. 16, 2007 at French Institute Alliance Francaise. The production was called "Desperately Seeking Carmen," and it was based on the story "Carmen," with excerpts from the Bizet's opera, combined with live flamenco music (guitar and singing) and dance, and a silent film by Cecil B. Demille. The film was shown on the large screen behind the guitarist, dancer, and singers while they performed.

It was a great performance and it inspired me to think of an imaginary I2 project: ballet performance. Usually in a ballet production, the dancers are in front of the orchestra (or on top of the orchestra, if the orchestra is in the orchestra pit). Why don't we reverse it and have the musicians on stage and dancers in the back? I can use the same setting as "Desperately Seeking Carmen," with a screen in the back and have musicians in front. I will have dancers dance live in another site and have the video projected on the screen. I wonder how latency affects the performance as a whole, but I believe it will not be a big issue since music is created on one site only. Maybe a revival of Stravinsky's Rite of Spring as a ballet production is possible!

Internet2 Challenge to overcome

On Feb. 13, 2007, we connected with members of UCI to discuss the ideas of our new project. It was my first time to experience this video conference. Overall the conference was successful, however I would like to raise one question.

My major concern is how to get to know the project members of UCI. I found it rather difficult to communicate through the video with people I just met. Perhaps it is because I am not used this setting. However, I think people tend to act differently in front of a camera, including myself and wonder if I can let go of that nervousness. I believe that it is crucial for all members to get to know and build connection with each other in order to make this project successful. On Feb. 13, because the UCI camera focused on only one person (speaker) or few others around the speaker, it was hard to see the whole group. I'm sure UCI members experienced the similar at their site. How do we overcome this challenge? Well, perhaps we could have one camera that focus on a speaker, and another camera on the whole class. To create a virtual class setting that is close to a real one, we could have the video connected throughout the class period with low audio level, so that each site can talk to the other when needed. We shall see how well the next conference works.

Cello Master Class

I viewed the video clip of the cello master class that was held on On 10 May 2001, between University of Oklahoma School of Music and Manhattan School of Music (the location was at Columbia University). Cello student Erin Dunn in Oklahoma participated in a master class with David Geber, Chairman of Strings at Manhattan School of Music using Internet2.

The class was very well conducted in terms of technology, and the student seemed to gain much inspiration and understanding out of this virtual lesson. One drawback is of course, not being able to touch one another. Many times a teacher needs to demonstrate very specifically how to use his or her body, requiring physical interaction with a student. However, Internet2 music education allows students in the remotest location from a teacher to interact and share musical learning together.

Technology, junk, and art

This article, "One Thing and Another: Tomoko Takahashi's CrashCourse@ The University of Warwick" by Nicolas Whybrow made me think about our fast advancing technology and the junk it produces. Japanese artist, Takahashi collected what seemed to be trash and unwanted and created an art show. Countless items were used: keyboard, phone, cables, shredded paper, lamp, etc. The author's interpretation of Takahashi's art is very interesting.

The artist's own position epitomises what is at stake in this paradox: amidst the chaos of 'junk' the visitor invariably discovers an aesthetically-pleasing order. It is one short step then to attributing this to a 'very Japanese' sense of meticulously-crafted, 'folkish' arrangement or ceremony. At the same time the recycling of discarded items suggests itself as a form of antidote to the mass production of popular consumer technologies that have come to be associated with post-war Japan. Thus, Takahashi is both playing on the stereotype, affirming her cultural' otherness,' and distancing herself from it.

This notion is intriguing to me as a Japanese person. In Japan people create art from empty tissue boxes, scratch papers, wire hangers. There is order behind chaos. While the technology is improving and machines become more and more compact with bigger capacity and greater possibilities, obsolete things get abandoned. Because my ancient (5 years old!) computer is crashing some times and Windows Vista has just been introduced, I would probably have to throw this computer away not too far ahead. In our Internet2 class, how should we deal with junk? Are we creating more junk than art itself?

Art works like Takahashi's project tell us to see unwanted things differently, perhaps in more appreciative way, and to notice art in them.

Article: http://people.brunel.ac.uk/bst/vol07/home.html

Article: “The Next Big Step? Long-distance learning via Internet2” by Rebecca Winzenried

Winzenried’s article discusses the pros and cons of Internet2 long-distance learning introducing the conducting master class given by New World Symphony Music Director Michael Tilson Tohomas in Miami to a student Donato Cabrera conducting Chamber Sinfonia of Manhattan School of Music in New York in Oct. 2001. Christianne Orto of MSM says that it was almost in synch although not completely so, because of the delay of 500 milliseconds. Winzenried says that Internet2 is focusing not only on speed but also on “quality of service.” She reports that there were a few glitches during the class, however she concludes that the instruction and music flowed freely.New World Symphony Director of Information Technology Tom Snook says that Internet2 will never replace a live performance, with which I agree, although I have not yet experienced the quality of Internet2. Who adjusts the subtly of different sound levels and how do we make sure that both sides have the same or close sound effect? What if one side is in a drier concert hall than the other one?

Winzenried explains that Internet2 is beneficial to musicians with heavy schedule. However, due to transmission delays performers from different locations are unable to truly rehearse together. The cost of using Internet2 is also a problem and users have to offer many long-distance events to defray it.

Click here to read the article.

IUPUI’s Project: Virtual Duo Recital

The School of Music of Indiana University-Purdue University Indianapolis held a piano duo recital using Internet2. Two pianists, Reid Alexander and Jo Ellen Devilbiss performed in Sep. 2002 in the Ruth Lilly Auditorium of the University Library. Three other universities (Pennsylvania State University, Southern Methodist University, and the University of Illinois) were connected with Internet2, allowing the listeners to experience the virtual recital and ask questions to the pianists after the performance as well as to interact with other audiences.

This project is particularly interesting to music lovers who are not able to make it to the concert venue. If each performer had been in a different city to give a real-time performance using Internet2, the delay in sounds would have been a big issue. However, because both performers were in the same place only connecting with the audiences on Iternet2, this project was made possible. A problem in a project like this would be probable glitches on Internet2. Unlike a master class or science conference, a formal recital needs to be a continuous event.

Click here to view the UIPUI's website.