Dreaming of new musical interaction – the interactive music in the project Dream

Abstract

ABSTRACT Dream was an online live performance in early 2021 and was a collaboration between several partners, among them Royal Shakespeare Company, the Philharmonia Orchestra, Marshmallow Laser Feast, Manchester International Festival and EPIC Games. The stated goal of Dream was to explore new ways of interacting with audiences while bridging the disciplines of theatre, music, video games and other forms of digital media. The musical goals were to enable a high level of musical interactivity while at the same time coupling that with the use of high-quality recorded orchestral music. This article is not a study of the Dream project as a whole, but focuses on the interactive music that was generated in realtime by the actors and powered by Reactional Music. Apart from briefly discussing the technology itself, this article will describe and analyse some of the working processes involved in composing interactive music, as well as discuss some of the future implications of the use of technology from the video game industry in new areas such as live performances and audience interaction. The aim of this is to see if it’s possible to envision what kind of new artistic output that can come from these new technological environments.