Closed Captions

Closed Captions is a conceptual composition - and a compositional tool - based on closed captions of movies and TV series. Captions - including the description of arbitrary sound events, not the transcription of speech - can be extracted with their timestamps from streaming platforms and converted using Matlab scripts. In the performance, each musician interprets the captions of an individual movie or episode. This process is thus the re-sonification of descriptions of sound events.

/images/closed_captions_TNG.png

The Python-based software for Closed Captions can be downloaded from a public GIT repository.

Gene Roddenberry Tribute Cycle

To this point, two versions have been created and performed, both premiered in online concerts. The simple, text-based instructions can be easily streamed to all musicians, even in setups with large distances:

TNG Version

The TNG version is based on episodes of Star Trek: The Next Generation. This is a recording from the premiere in the Quarantine Sessions, 4th of July, 2020:

Audio only:

Thanks to the regular Quarantine Session Performers (aka The Core):

  • Constantin Basica (Palo Alto, CA)

  • Chris Chafe (Woodside, CA)

  • Fernando Lopez-Lezcano (San Carlos, CA)

  • Juan Parra (Ghent, BE)

  • Klaus Scheuermann (Berlin, DE)

And a special thanks to the Guests:

  • Emily Graber, violin (Toronto, CAN)

  • Hans Kretz, Clavinova (Palo Alto, CA)

  • Scott Oshiro, flute (Stanford, CA)

  • Sarah Weaver, conductor (Chicago, IL)

TOS Version

The TOS Version uses captions from episodes of Star Trek (The Original Series). It has been performed with The Core in a remote concert at DigitIzmir in December 2020: