Remote Gestures: A Prototype Performance, Visualisation Research Centre, Hong Kong, 2023.

This performance was based on a research project led by Roberto Alonso Trillo and Peter A C Nelson that sought to link creative processes and devices that were difficult to access during the COVID-19 period. Using our native disciplines as a test case, we explored how to remotely connect a violinist and a painter over any distance with minimum latency and maximum creative exchange. This went through multiple research iterations until we arrived at a functional combination of Michael Palumbo’s AllHands protocol for sending low-latency OSC messages, Stanford University’s CCRMA Jacktrip for video and sound, and a range of our own bespoke mapping systems for transferring data from a violin bow into a surround sound system, a 360 cinema, and a robotic calligraphy system. Remote Gestures was a special event where we tested these remote collaboration protocols in a live performance and shared our research with our art, music, and technology communities in Hong Kong.