Roundware is a flexible, open-source interactive audio platform which can be used to create unique participatory audio experiences.  Initially developed for sound art installations, Roundware has been used for museum audio tours as well as other educational purposes.

• Roundware enables the two-way, wireless, real-time transfer of audio information via handheld devices.
• Roundware organizes an ever-growing collection of audio information such that it can be accessed in both educational and artistic ways.
• Roundware serves audio streams to users in a flexible non-linear way within the user’s criteria.
  

What would it sound like to hear the thoughts of California ocean conservationists and Japanese fishermen together in a piece of music?  How about political activists and six-year olds?  Oceanic issues are rife with nuance, filled with emotion and broad enough to affect all life on this planet.  By collecting these personal expressions and presenting them back in a collective way, Ocean Voices intends to open minds and expand awareness through music and grassroots participation.

Ocean Voices is a collaboration between sound artist Halsey Burgund and marine biologist Wallace J. Nichols designed to collect spoken voice recordings from people around the world responding to a few personal questions about the ocean, including:

• How does the ocean affect you on a daily basis?
• Describe a world without oceans.
• What does it feel like to be in the ocean?

The voices will be collected via in person interviews, an interactive website, a kiosk at CAS and through software developed for Android phones and the iPhone.  The collection of these voices is the first crucial step in Ocean Voices as it is these recordings which will act as the raw material for related music compositions which Halsey will compose.  The voice recordings will not only act as inspiration from a content standpoint, but will be used in combination with acoustic and electronic instruments in the composition itself.  Halsey has been writing music using spoken voices for many years and Ocean Voices gives him an exciting opportunity to further his artistic goals within the context of a global environmental issue he cares deeply about.

The artistic “product” of Ocean Voices is two-fold.  First, as the voices are collected, they will be consolidated in an online database which participants will be able to access in the form of algorithmically generated audio collages.  These collages will present a user-selected group of voices in a non-linear, semi-randomized fashion which will not only give each participant a unique audio experience, but will also help them hear the thoughts of many other individuals in a musical setting.  The collages will be accessible online which will help spread the voices around the globe and as more voices are collected, the collages will become more and more varied.

The second product will be a semi-improvised, semi-composed piece of music which will be performed at CAS in June 2010 in celebration of World Ocean Day as well as the 100th anniversary of Jacques Cousteau’s birth.  Jacques Cousteau did more than anyone else to increase ocean awareness among every day people around the globe, and Ocean Voices endeavors to represent similar people and their stories collectively.  This musical performance will be staged by Halsey and his band, aesthetic evidence, and will also include live-generated projected visuals which will be tightly woven into the music/voice fabric.

Ocean Voices has both artistic and conservation goals.

• to bring together a global community to emphasize how ocean conservation is a global issue
• to focus on the individual and the individual’s thoughts about the ocean, making it very personal and therefore more impactful
• to bring together the creative/musical/artistic world with the environmental world, thereby broadening the audience and increasing accessibility
• to actively solicit grassroots participation from a wide variety of geographic and demographic groups and encourage cross-pollination of ideas

Ocean Voices Development site

Please feel free to check it out, make some recordings and let me know how it all goes.

This is the first implementation of Roundware over the internet and it’s really exciting to be able to reach so many more people.

Scapes is a sound installation at the DeCordova Sculpture Park and Museum in Lincoln, MA which augments the physical landscape of the park with a location-sensitive layer of audio.  This audio layer contains a mixture of instrumental music and spoken voices – contributed by participants – both of which are influenced by the participant’s location within the sculpture park.  As such, the participant’s body becomes the primary mode of interaction with this project; as they move through the park, they control how their individual audioscape unfolds by shifting the instrumental music and “running into” audio left by other participants. Museum visitors will use a handheld wireless device and headphones with which they can listen to audio as well as make their own recordings which will be immediately assimilated into the piece for everyone to hear.

More details…

The above is a short demonstration piece of music using the voices already collected by UNICEF staffers.  The process of creating this amazed me with the potential and power that this project can deliver to people around the world.  Sitting in my studio in suburban Boston listening to the raw voices of children talking (and often singing) about disease, freedom, hardships, war, family etc, transported me into a place in which I have little experience thus far but feel great empathy.  I hope Round Stories can provide participants with a similar eye-opening experience and a feeling of connection with the global community that we are all a part of whether or not we accept and embrace it.

Brief Summary

ROUND is part museum audio tour and part participatory audio blog. Using mobile networked devices, museum visitors are able to leave audio comments about the museum’s artworks as well as hear those of other museum visitors, artists and curators. Voices are combined with music in an individualized audio experience.

video documentation of ROUND at the Aldrich Museum

Description

Today, information gathering involves gaining perspective from a diverse array of sources, all available at our fingertips. Searching for a simple product online, individuals can read reviews not only from “expert” sources, but from the product users themselves, and subsequently add their own feedback. Content is no longer something created and maintained by a single authoritative entity. Instead, the public is accustomed to content that is available, participatory, and ultimately democratic in nature. Wikis, blogs, and sites like YouTube seek to involve browsers in an ongoing process of creation and collaboration that constantly changes the landscape of the Web. Why should experiencing art be any different?

ROUND probes this question by using networking and streaming audio technologies to create a hybrid of the traditional museum audio tour and a participatory blog. ROUND is an audio installation that seeks spoken voice contributions from museum visitors and uses them as part of an evolving musical composition intended to be listened to while viewing the work in the galleries. This interactive audio experience allows visitors to select from a diverse range of voices sharing their perspectives about the exhibitions—including artists, curators, educators, and visitors—and to add their own responses to the mix. Just as a dialogue about a work of art is forever unfolding, the flow of music changes continually as a result of being created using custom compositional algorithms.

The title ROUND alludes to both a musical round—a song in which two or more voices sing the same melody but in an offset fashion—and the age-old Arthurian legend about the Knights of Camelot who sat at a round table, affording no one person a privileged position. Equality of opinion and the opportunity for two-way dialogue are core ideas of this project. As participating visitors view the exhibitions, their comments are collected in a database of recordings and subsequently incorporated into the piece in real time. Thus, there is a continual loop of opinion and emotional response, all contained within a musical work.

Technology

In keeping with the open and collaborative nature of the project, ROUND was built primarily using open-source software tools and packages. The custom server software was developed in Python and runs on Linux. The client software runs on a mobile Linux platform (Maemo) on Nokia N800 tablet computers. The algorithmic music was programmed in Max/MSP and various software samplers and synthesizers were used to turn the algorithm outputs into an evolving stream of audio.

ROUND runs on a wireless network within the museum which allows the N800s to connect to the server. Using a custom GUI, participants make various selections pertaining to the artworks and types of voice they want to hear. A SQL query is generated and sent to the server which returns all audio files that match the participant’s query. These files are then played back according to parameters which allow for randomness and chance while not devolving into total chaos. The audio stream of voices is then combined with the instrumental stream and sent out to the participant using Icecast streaming software. The system allows for multiple simultaneous users with the limiting factors being server processing power and network bandwidth.

Audio Samples
ROUND sample – The Aldrich
[audio:http://www.roundware.org/wp-content/uploads/2009/08/round_sample_aldrich.mp3]
[audio:http://www.halseyburgund.com/audio/round_sample_round.mp3]

Additional Information

• Halsey Burgund resume
• Halsey Burgund artist statement
• Halsey Burgund website
• ROUND website at The Aldrich
• New York Times review of ROUND

Photos

ROUND interface on mobile device

ROUND participant listening

Explaining ROUND to participant (alongside kiosk)

He is a musician and sound artist living outside Boston and has been working on Roundware in the context of his sound installations for the past three years.  Roundware originated as the technical infrastructure for his sound art installation ROUND, on exhibit at the Aldrich Contemporary Art Museum in mid-2008.  Halsey’s next significant museum exhibition will be in 2010 at the DeCordova Museum in Lincoln, MA.  This piece, called Scapes, will allow participants to augment the physical landscape of the museum’s sculpture park by leaving audio commentary in locations of their choosing for other participants to hear.

All of Halsey’s installations and musical performances make extensive use of spoken human voice recordings as musical elements, alongside traditional and electronic instruments. He collects these voices from otherwise uninvolved individuals whom he records in various locations, from museums to street corners to rock clubs.

Halsey also has a band, aesthetic evidence, with which he performs his music publicly, often including interactive performances in which he records audience members’ voices and uses those recordings improvisationally within songs.

Halsey’s website

In other words, without him, Roundware would be nothing more than an idea.  Mike has been involved with Roundware from day 1.  He randomly met Halsey at a Bring Your Own Voice event at the Aldrich Museum (the site of the original ROUND installation) before Halsey had even formulated the idea for ROUND.  As they both live in Boston, a friendship ensued and as ROUND began to progress from an artistic idea to a reality, Mike played an integral role in solving problems, answering questions and bringing it to fruition.

Since the original installation, Mike has continued to improve and further stabilize the code while also bringing to life Halsey’s ever-evolving artistic ideas; not an easy task!

When he is not working on Roundware, Mike is seldom bored, amusing himself with projects ranging from a bicycle karaoke machine to a fully working trebuchet.

David and I plan to get together next week to strategize about the webadmin for Roundware.  Right now, it is very basic and only allows for elemental database updates.  We need to add more functionality as well as make it more user friendly wiht ajaxification etc etc.  I’m very excited to make some progress on this as it will increase the likelihood of other people/institutions wanting to use Roundware for their own purposes.