PROPOSALA project associated with the Info Centre ProjectMarch 15, 2001 revised.

An Educational Project Towards New Creativity

Net Composition In the age of broadband high quality media streaming

Shinji KankiCentre for Music & Technology Sibelius Academyskanki@siba.fi Tel. (4054) 778

Before reading the proposal

I have already written and submitted occasionally similar kinds of related proposals in shorter printed formats or in the web formats since back 1998. However, unfortunately almost all of them are either ignored or at least not spread inside the Academy. The reason might be that the time was not right or my vision was not clear enough to be comprehensible to wider audience. (I will attach those former papers and web URLs as references. They all are somehow related to this project. I also attach an information of what I have been doing at the Academy since I started to work here 1992 simply because I found out that not many staffs know what I have been doing).

I made my mind clear that this time and as the final attempt (I will no more repeat) I submit a more comprehensive, detailed proposal that has in result made me to write these lengthy papers.

If the title of the proposal does NOT interest you at sight at all, I advise you not spend any time for reading these thick papers. By any means I do not want to disturb your valuable time.

However if you think it might interest you or make you a bit curious, please read VERY carefully every sentence, words and vision I have presented here in order. There are nothing else left I have to say. They are all here.

Please note that this paper is not scientific research presentation. I am a composer working in an experimental technological field. Words and sentences are sometimes very intuitive and artistic which I myself value a lot.

An apology also goes to my slightly distorted English. Neither my Finnish nor Japanese are right tools for me to communicate in this kind of text presentation.

Thank you.

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Section I: Concept and Vision

- Introduction

- What is Net Composition?

- What is Broadband High Quality Media Streaming?

- Purpose of the project

- Learning Fields within the Net Composition

- History of My Activities related to Net Composition

- History of Streaming at Sibelius Academy

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Introduction

Being in an advantage of broadband-high speed network community (FUNET, NORDNET & TEN-155, Internet 2), it is already now possible to transmit very high quality dynamic complex media contents over the Internet and Intranet. Using this network environment as a new kind of ‘concert stage’, I would like to experiment and build up new compositional methods for advanced music students to develop their new creativity.

As the Sibelius Academy being responsible towards highest music education and myself being a special kind of composer interested in both technological and experimental field, I strongly feel that we, me and the Academy should challenge bravely this new way of creating music/sound art in order to give our highly competent students as well as teachers a new creative perspective in the field of music art and technology.

Various possibilities of creating new types of composition will be thoroughly searched in a form of group learning of distributed expertise.

The project demands interdisciplinary collaboration with other high education technical and media institutes. The Finnish university league has already started the Virtual University Project. My project can serve as one of the unique contributions of new artistic learning to it.

Since my research of the Net Composition project has started when the Centre for Music and Technology opened autumn 1998 and since the project has been developing during the last 2 years, I have already modest amount of resources and know-how. It is absolutely right time to develop more deeply and systematically towards coming ‘Digital Sibelius Academy’ in future.

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What is Net Composition?

Imagine that you have 24 hours and 365 days accessible concert hall where you can come in anytime without spending commuting time, just right on your desktop in your room, or wherever you are (in very near future). You can have all kinds of newest facilities: New P.A. with multi surround channels, Digital video projectors, resizable multi dimensional stage and so on. You might be sharing the live concert experience together with someone somewhere on the other side of the globe, or even you might be participating in making music together with other audience as well as composers. You can even jump to the past to repeat the already gone music performance as if you are reading a book in your own speed and going back sometime.

Imagine that you are a music composer and get a chance of creating a new composition for the above audience and performance space. Musicians, facilities, many international / multi-cultural audience are at your disposal. What kind of music are you going to compose? Chamber music? Symphonies? Electro-Acoustic Music? Computer music? Machine Music or Music Video for 24 hours? Compositions played together with remotely located musicians with time delay? Special Experimental Music VIRUS that spreads all over the globe?

Using right technologies and new creative thinking, you can archive totally new kinds of music productions. You can already find some interesting media artists who have started to investigate in this new field. Check up the following most known media festivals and their Net Arts category:

Ars Electronica, Linz: http://www.aec.at/index1.htmlISEA: http://www.isea.qc.ca/symposium/information.html

Also I would like to mention some articles written about ‘Net Music’ here.

Net music – a Perspective by composer Atau Tanaka**http://www.sensorband.com/atau/papers/netmusic.html

The Net and Music Conditions by Johannes Goebel/ZKM and Golo Föllmer**http://on1.zkm.de/netCondition.root/netcondition/print

** I will also attach printed copies of these articles with this proposal.

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The last autumn I have initiated the pilot project ‘Net Composition’. What we, me and selected students from Centre for Music & Technology have been doing, please check the following URL: http://webusers.siba.fi/cmt/NetComp/netdiary.html

There is not a single established method in anywhere yet. Each session will create the new learning method and know-how. I must tell you that I have been already approached by several institutes both in Finland and abroad to give basic guidance of the project. It is sure that there are many people interested in this totally yet unknown creative study.

Some examples:- Compositions for virtual ensemble.- Music healing compositions.- Sonification on the Net.- AC3 composition / soundscape on the Net- Interactive music theatre on the Net.- Net radio phonic productions.- Compositions for satellites transmission.- DNA music generation via the Net.

I must also mention that there is already a good technological background and tools available for the project, especially in Finland.

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What is Broadband High Quality Media Streaming?

1) Broadband vs. Narrowband.

At the moment ordinal Internet users use rather limited bandwidth (speed) for connecting to the ISP(Internet Service Provider): 56K modem, ISDN, dual ISDN (= narrowband). Some users have already installed a cable modem and a new ADSL (= almost broadband) which give you much faster connection and in no time limitation. However connection costs are still rather high for normal users to afford. It is getting lower later.In future, in times of 5 years span, bandwidth gets broader and less expensive. For example FTTH (Optical Fiber Cable to the Home) project has already started in Japan covering two limited test areas. In the year 2005 all homes get fiber connection. Even the next generation mobile phones (wireless communication) starting at the year 2002 gets rather fast connection (2Mbps) as you already know.

There was an interview article of the CEO of Sony Corporation, Nobuyuki IDEI on the Asahi Net News and there was by him an interesting comment on near future network communication, the opinion which I also have had a quite long time.

' In few years, there would be arriving an infrastructure with huge broad-bandwidth for everyone. The system of the society existed before the Net age has to face the major danger of the existence. We, not only enterprises but nations and individuals, are all forced to adjust ourselves to this new living environment.'

There is also an interesting article about Broadband connection in the international economy magazine, Fortune. Please check URL the below.

http://www.fortune.com/fortune/sections/broadband/broadband.htm

FUNET (Finnish University Network) has upgraded its backbone network to 2.5Gbps, ready for high quality media streaming for its clients: Finnish Universities during the early time of 2001.

2) Media Streaming

At the moment large media contents can be transferred / streamed only inside Intranet (LAN) environment without waiting lots of lots of time. Some sophisticated compression schemes provide you a chance to receive rather acceptable quality streaming of music and video even via narrowband connection. Streaming means receiving media contents without waiting, without downloading all the contents to your local computer.

On the other hand, popular mp3 compressed music are penetrating the music market recently. This is not streaming but downloading entire music to your computer. Just

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recently mp3 music files has started to stream. But this compression scheme degrades very high quality music in recognizable level.

Some other streaming architecture like RealMedia, QuicTime, Liquid Audio, Microsoft Media Technology give you a chance to get streams in narrowband connection, but quality is always in question.

But these technologies are developing constantly and now mostly ready for much high bandwidth streaming. QuickTime has already started to deliver 1Mbps streaming of seminars, concerts both in live and stored. Once there were 6000 broadband receivers on the occasion of Mac World in New York 2000. It was almost close to digital TV quality.

3) High Quality Sure Streaming

When you stream, for example, concerts (Live or archive), both just only music or with video, it is not enough to stream it but it needs very high quality stream in order to give very sensitive artistic expression (dynamic range, face and finger expression, etc.)

Getting distorted sounds, dropping them and video frames shown in very small video window on your computer means nonsense and frustrate you a lot especially for high artistic contents receiving. Full screen mode is out of question.

However, a combination of broadband connection and sophisticated compression architecture gives you a possibility to get artistic productions on your desktop without compromising its quality. And it will be coming gradually in future.

It is now time to start prepare for this new living environment. We can start testing high quality broadband first inside our Intranet and also in FUNET both of which give chances for doing it already at this moment. Then we can further test and develop its contents for everyone-in-broadband age.

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Purpose of the project

It is educational in the first hand. Sibelius Academy is the only music university in Finland and the third biggest in entire Europe. It is an educational institute for music art. Providing highest Music education is priority no.1 in the Academy. Also teaching ‘CREATIVITY’ is one of the most difficult tasks and yet very productive in music education, which is sometimes forgotten. This project stimulates especially the new creative teaching.

The project also contributes to the following technological fields that might be relevant to the other projects in the Info Centre Project.

- Remote video conference teaching.- Broadcasting concerts, seminars and lectures both in live or stored (on demand) to

the Internet.- High quality Audio visual based library for public.- On-line inquiry of the school. Public relations.

What we also need as music educational school besides giving high quality music teaching is artistic music production by students and teachers of the school. It needs very sensitive care for creating and presenting them. How shall we reach more people to promote our integrated musical activity in both Finland and worldwide?

Digitising musical contents and being ready for distributing them for remote public are also important and a purpose of the project.

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Learning fields within the Net Composition

The Net Composition – a new learning project requires the following wide fields of studies.

- Network Communication Technology.- Streaming Technology. Video Conference technology.- Wireless communication.- Web programming. HTML, SML, WML, Java, CGI, etc.- Media compression technology- Net audio- New technological music resources and their historical study.- New media arts (net arts) and sound art analysis. - Net Compositions critique session

Other related fields of study.

- New Media study.- Net radio, Net TV.- Related music programming study. DSP, MIDI, IRCAM programs, Jsynth. etc.- 2D, 3D, 4D animation basic study.

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History of my activities related to Net Composition.

- 1998 Autumn Warsaw Music Festival. Internet Concert. My Net Composition for virtual string trio (Helsinki – Oslo – Warsaw).

- 1997, 98, 99. Participating in Ars Electronica Festival in Linz. Austria.- 2000 spring. 2 months residence at ZKM in Karlsruhe, Germany for Net

Composition research.- 2000 spring. Visiting lecturer of Net Composition at Basel Music Academy,

Switzerland.- 2000 autumn. Net Composition test pilot course started.- 2000 autumn. Presentation at Studia Cultura seminar at Porvoo.- 2001 spring. Workshop lecture in Music & New Technology at the Further

Education Centre at Sibelius Academy.

History of Streaming at Sibelius Academy

I have initiated Academy’s Net concerts in the early Spring1996 for DOCMUS concert as well as other concerts and the seminars. But the target so far was for narrowband transmission and streaming. People who are receiving mostly via slow modem connections to the Internet. They all worked and served quite well as experimental projects as you all know.

Check the netcasted concerts page’s URL:

http://www.siba.fi/Nettikonsertit/

Centre for Music & Technology has produced a year Net Seminar. Check the URL below.

http://ilmari.siba.fi/groups/mute/Program/Seminar/Index.asp

I myself involved and initiated both of the above projects. Spring 2000 I was residence researcher / Composer at ZKM (Centre for Art and Media Technology), one of the largest media institute in Europe, in Karlsruhe, Germany for 2 months. I tested QuickTime based streaming technology and created a prototype of the Internet version of music label distribution called Edition CM&T. I am still developing it towards E-commerce possibility. Please check the URL:

http://webusers.siba.fi/cmt/Page/label.html

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Section II: Realization

- Actual scenario of the project

- Schedule

- Budget Estimation

- My contribution to CM&T

- Conclusion

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Actual scenario of the project

It should be a joint project with me being a teacher/ researcher / experimental composer in residence at the Academy, then a new department, Centre for Music & Technology and the Computing Centre with many outside partners. I am not alone!

Period: 1) The first two years for pilot research & course testing. Starting 1/8 2001 till 31/7 2003*.2) The third year for developing. From 1/8 2003 till 31/7 2004*.

* More detailed schedule is below in the ‘Schedule’ section.

Team: Shinji Kanki, special teacher and occasionally (1 -2 times per a year) invited net composers** from abroad.

** Matias Fuchs. Lecturer at ‘der Hochschule für angewandte Kunst in Wien’ and ‘der Meisterklasse für Experimentelle Visuelle Gestaltung in Linz’. http://www.ufg.ac.at/evg/public_html/teachers/fuchs/privat.htm

** Masayuki Akamatsu. Associate professor at IAMAS. http://www.iamas.ac.jp/~aka/

**Maciej Walczak. Composer. Stuttgart / Warsaw.

And surely more invited experts in the field.

Partners: I will collaborate with CM&T* and the Computing Centre in the Academy as well as several outside partners. The numbers of partners are increasing constantly.

* The partnership to CM&T is described in the section ‘My associated works with CM&T’ below.

Media Lab / UIAH. Collaborating with their QuickTime Streaming Server sharing and developing.

The Media Department of University of Lapland (where I have been teaching). Collaborating with their SGI 3D sound system.

On-line team / ZKM, Karlsruhe, Germany. Collaborating with their QuickTime Streaming Server at the On-Line Team and other visual media department as well as the institute of music and acoustics for joint net concert project development.

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IRCAM communication unit, Paris.

KIASMA. Collaboration with their Media Base server for high quality media delivery.

FUNETTV team / CSC (with which I made an agreement in Autumn 2000 to develop Dolby Digital transmission on the broadband net).

University of Osaka. My associate, a Japanese professor in the Institute of Educational Technology, who visited Finland and OTANIEMI few times introducing Japanese satellite communication application , promised to collaborate in using their dedicated satellite transmission system and exchange educational information.

And of course, The Virtual University of Finnish Universities , Centre for Educational Technology. Janne Sariola. Integrating my artistic course to their project.

Location: The project should be located DIRECTLY under the rector and should be financed as one of Info Centre related projects and should be supervised by artistic board of the Academy in cooperation with the Computing Centre and the Centre for Music & Technology.

Naturally my current office at R-TALO is used as a central project room including all facilities (belonging to CM&T) I have now at the moment.

Students: Open to all students to the Sibelius Academy. Especially the project might interest students in CM&T, Dept. of Composition and Music Theory, Dep. of Music Education, as well as students in Art Management and doctoral students in DOCMUS.

Results: The progression of the project and related activities will be published on the web site ‘ Net Composition’. The URL will be later informed.

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Schedule

Actual schedule is based on a year cycle that will be repeated and twice plus another extended year. However each cycle will naturally develop according to the previous experience, how much amount the course should be put into the Net and advancement of technology.

After all, the project is to establish a new learning/teaching method for artistic new music & media production and integrate it entirely into the Net.

During the first two yeas period: 1/8 2001 till 31/7 2003.

Basic a year cycle

1/8 – 31/12 2001. Investigation *I will keep on investigating and working with several net / music programs and media servers available on the Net. Especially QuickTime Streaming Server at Media Lab /UIAH and at the on-line team/ZKM. Also SGI based Media server at FUNETTV/CSC.

* Investigation naturally takes whole two years project period and the extended another year as well. It is a continuous learning activity to build up a method that has never existed before.

Visiting ZKM and Ars Electronica Festival in Linz for getting fresh information, meeting people and exchanging current information in the fields.

Installing a proper and practical media server, new OS X server at CM&T as a test bed at R-bldg. Testing and developing it, especially implementing our own QTSS with a Mac Net supporter.

1/1 – 31/5 2002. Course StartingLaunching a fresh start of Net Composition Course based on the test pilot year (September 2000 – March 2001). Open to all Academy students and to other university students who are interested in joining us.

Sorting out fundamental questions: Technology. Aesthetics. Artistic problems.

Planning various Net compositions and special live media transmission.Developing each Net composition projects.Working with each composition with student group.

Presentation.

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The second year: 1/8, 2002 – 31/5, 2003.

Repetition and development This second year is especially dedicated to a filed: Video/Audio conferencing.Comparing to Streaming technology, Video conferencing possibility is not yet fully studied and applied. I would like to make full investigation in this field and to apply the technology to the Net Composition course. Of course I will investigate the Video Conference filed during the first year period but not so extensively due to too much materials and technological possibilities lying in the streaming technology.

I will also start to concentrate on integrating the course activity into the Net and try out remote teaching system.

Attention: No OS X server installation since it should be there working. However I should tune up the QTSS according to new version and possibilities.

During the another extended year (The third year): 1/8, 2003 – 31/5, 2004

Repetition and development

Besides the basic cycle year repetition and development, I would like to dedicate this year for paying an attention to promote the course and expand it internationally such as group participation to different festivals and conferences, organizing our own ‘Net Composition Conference on the Net’.

I will work out how to integrate the project into the virtual university course by the end of 2004 when the virtual university is supposed to be fully operational.

By this year hopefully I have enough brains and student artists who could work together with me to realize the above activities.

Guest lecturers appear according to their suitable timetables or sometimes on the Net by means of video conference system.

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Budget Estimation

The first 2 years: 1/8 2001 – 31/7 2003

My salary A22 , special lecturer for 2 years 416.000,-

System investment (Hardware & Software) 50.000,-*

Web/Media server**PowerMac G4 733MHz 256MB, 60Gt, CD-RW/DVD-R 25950,- Apple Studio Display 15" Flat panel 6000,-OS X server software 3000,-

Additional software such as some music plug-ins, encorder software, etc.15050,-

* Some of the resources could be shared with CM&T and the Computing Centre.

Other expense (research references, trips, Guest lecturers, etc.) 54.000,-

References. Books, magazines and CD-ROMs, etc. ca. 4000,-

Trips (Possible interesting conferences) ca.20.000,-- Ars Electronica, Linz. Sep. 1- 6. This is a must!- Research return trip to ZKM, Karlsruhe. This is a must! During Autumn 2001.

Options:- The Net Congestion. Streaming conference. Amsterdam Oct. 6-8, 2001- International conference on web delivering of music Florence. Nov 30 – Dec.1,

2001.- Media Art Festival Osnabrück April 25-29, 2002

Guest lecturers* ca. 30.000,-3 persons at least during the first 2 years.* Refer to the ‘Staff’ in the section ‘Actual Scenario of the project’ above.

--------------------------------------------------TOTAL: 520.000,-

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Another continuing year 1/8 2003 – 31/7 2004

My salary A22 for 1 year 208.000,-

Other expenses 45.000,-

Trips (Ars Electronic and other possible interesting conferences. Refer to the first 2 years expenses) 24.000,-

Guest lecturers. 2 persons at least! 21.000,-

System additions 30.000,- *

Additional software for the server + software upgrades.

*Some of the resource budget could be shared with CM&T and Computing Centre.

--------------------------------------------------TOTAL: 283.000,-

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My associated works with CM&T

Here is a list up of my associated projects being carried on with CM&T during the project period.

- Concert Productions . I am occasionally going to produce the Net / Technology oriented concerts. For example I am planning a PPC (Post-Post Cage) concert series during October 1, 2001 – March 31, 2002 already now.

- Net Composition course (TM10) direction . Of course the very core of the student groups of this project is from CM&T, probably joined with some guest students from Media Lab, UIAH and from other universities.

- Dynamic Web home site direction . Feb.1 2001 –. The site will be appeared publicly August 1, 2001 when the CM&T becomes officially a department. The development and sight management continues after that.

- Special Media teaching / workshop consultation . For Example. ‘Off-Side Camp’ for DTV (Desk Top Video) and Sound Visualization workshop. I will assist and collaborate with a coming new media teacher.

- CM&T research environment web development . Aug.1, 2001 –. Assisting and collaborating with a coming new Mac network supporter.

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Conclusion

Producing and up-bringing competent creative artistic minds of highly talented young students in the field of music and new technology is a very demanding work and I am very happy and ready for dedicating myself to this complex but fascinating new learning project.

Thank you.

March 15, 2001 Helsinki

Shinji KankiExperimental planning officerCentre for Music & TechnologySibelius Academy

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