Deep Space Music

The opening gala of Ars Electronica 2012, where a live piano concert was turned into an immersive, real-time visual space.

Deep Space Music brings together sound and image, music and computer graphics, transforming the projection space into a setting for intimate experience. Japanese pianist Maki Namekawa performed a programme by three visionary composers: the concert celebrated the 60th birthday of Ryuichi Sakamoto (JP) and the 75th of Philip Glass (US), and commemorated the 100th anniversary of John Cage's (US) birth.

To give Namekawa room for spontaneous improvisation, the performance — under the interactive visual art direction of Candaş Şişman and Deniz Kader — was supported live by the Plato Media Lab team. Working in real time, the team received her playing as it happened and turned it into interactive visuals, drawing on a repertoire of graphic elements developed through an intensive encounter with each piece.

Merging Namekawa's abstract notes with the atmosphere of the space, the project offered an enchanting, immersive experience.

It was my first work as an artist, and a turning point: sitting in that room I decided that this was what I wanted to do — keep my background in programming and join it with design and art.