Internet2 Virtual Arts Festival

During July 2001, Internet2 presented an exhibition of interactive demonstrations and live, remote musical performances in conjunction with the Ann Arbor Art Fair. The Ann Arbor Art Fair is an annual event famous for attracting as many as 100,000 visitors in a given day. Exhibitors from all over the nation display their art in booths lining the streets and outdoor stages showcase jazz, folk and rock bands from the greater Detroit Metropolitan area.

Where
The Internet2 Virtual Arts Festival was held at Ann Arbor’s IT Zone (330 E. Liberty) conveniently located in the heart of the Art Fair.

Performances
In conjunction with Columbia University, the Manhattan School of Music (MSM) the Nick Mancini Collective gave a live jazz performance from New York for the IT Zone audience. Nick Mancini is an alum of MSM and the leader of this critically-acclaimed jazz trio.  In addition to Mr. Mancini´s performance on the vibes, he was joined by bass player and MSM student Pedro Giraudo and vocalist/trombonist/ukelele player J. Walter Hawkes.

Their performance was streamed (MPEG-2) live to Ann Arbor over Internet2 high-performance networks.

Art Fair Web Cam
An MPEG-1 web camera was located at the corner of South and East University streets. Virtual Arts Festival visitors will be able to control the camera remotely from the IT Zone to see what was going on at the other end of the Art Fair.

Demonstrations

Live Uncompressed Audio From KEXP-FM
University of Washington
http://www.kexp.org/

Seattle-based KEXP 90.3 FM—an eclectic, non-commercial music station in partnership with the Pacific Northwest GigaPoP and ResearchChannel—offers listeners the opportunity to hear uncompressed audio of its programming service over the Internet.  This 24/7 stream provides the listener with the highest quality audio experience at a rate of 1.4 Mbs. Streaming uncompressed audio over Internet2 high-performance networks not only represents the gold standard in delivering the richest and the purest musical content, but also demonstrates how Internet2 networks can distribute the work of artists in the highest quality possible—enabling more people to experience and appreciate art, music, and culture the way it is meant to be experienced, as close to reality as possible.

Spirited Ruins 
Boston University
http://scv.bu.edu/hipart/

Spirited Ruins is an immersive, virtual-reality based environment that showcases visual and auditory works created by invited artists. It uses high-performance networking to interconnect an ImmersaDesk®, interactive kinetic sculptures, workstations, and web clients to create a shared virtual world. In Spirited Ruins, participants become “virtual tourists” who explore the ruins of a palace built by an ancient civilization. Through a confluence of magic and technology, it is possible for participants in the virtual world to bring to life these long-dormant objects and interact with kinetic sculptures. 

The Last Expression: Art from Auschwitz
Northwestern University
http://tle.northwestern.edu/

A team of Holocaust historians, museum curators in Evanston and Poland, and IT staff from Northwestern University have collaborated to create this electronic exhibit, called "The Last Expression: Art from Auschwitz." Through various media and approaches, this project aims to broaden historical accounts to include art production, a topic that has generally been excluded in both analysis of concentration camps and the standard narratives of twentieth-century art history. In addition to this electronic exhibition, a collection of these works will be available for viewing at the Block Museum of Art at Northwestern University in September 2001.

Transatlantic Drumming
University of Michigan

Transatlantic Drumming is a hands-on demonstration that allows participants to strike a drum in Ann Arbor. The kinetic motion from striking the drum is converted into a digital signal that is sent to a server in Tübingen, Germany, Ann Arbor's German sister city. The signal is then bounced back, causing the drum to be struck again in Ann Arbor. Transatlantic Drumming uses two computers in Ann Arbor, each of which is connected to an NIQ EZ I/O digital interface board, plus another computer in Tübingen, Germany. One of the computers in Ann Arbor reads a sensor that can tell when people have struck a drum; it then sends this signal to a computer in Germany, which bounces the data about the drum striking back to the second computer in Ann Arbor. That computer activates a small kinetic device which strikes a conga drum, so that the participant´s drumming goes to Germany and back via Internet2 networks. As part of the demonstration, a graphic display depicts the distance to Germany and the speed of the signal transmission.