Liceu presents OPERA PRIMA, a new opera co-creation initiative with the Raval neighbourhood Vicomtech - 16th February 2021 Liceu Press Conference: OPERA PRIMA https://youtu.be/H9fPprQem7c On February 1st, Liceu opera house held a press conference about its OPERA PRIMA initiative, which integrates the philosophy and technology developed within the European project TRACTION. The OPERA PRIMA initiative is born from a vision of using art as a pillar of transformation for people, as well as with the will of facilitating social inclusion through culture. Every three years, Liceu [...]

Second Meeting with the TRACTION ICAT Susannah Fraser – Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona – 8th February 2021 Highlights from the meeting with the TRACTION ICAT As the second year of project gets into its stride, members of the TRACTION consortium met online for the second time with the project’s international advisory board (ICAT) on January 15th 2021. The ICAT comprises a rich assortment of academics, technologists and members of the performing arts community. Present in the meeting were a number of representatives from universities; such as Professor [...]

Round table in the International Conference Media4All Pilar Orero – Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona This year marks the return of the Media4ALL conference to where it started fifteen years ago: Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona. This conference provides a platform for all stakeholders, from researchers and developers to analysts, audiences and business leaders. The objective is to generate a meeting point where to present findings, developments, ideas and experiences from the multi-faceted world of audiovisual translation and media accessibility and to highlight in particular their technological, social, financial, and [...]

Reflections about the phenomenon of community art Irene Calvis – El Liceu 19.01.2021 Main Hall of the Gran Teatre del Liceu. Photo by @PACO AMATE To understand why an institution like the Gran Teatre del Liceu, with a history going back over 170 years, decided to launch a project line of community art; we must review its past and its evolution over the years. For both Barcelona and Catalonia, the Liceu is a key cultural facility with a clear awareness of its own history, which seeks to [...]

Cross-fertilisation for Media Co-creation Copyrights Across Three H2020 Funded Projects Pilar Orero – Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona The co-creation methodology of media content creation has proven to be a dynamic collective way to generate, re-use and repurpose existing media assets. This collaborative production approach is shared by three H2020 funded projects: TRACTION (870610) SOCLOSE (870939), and MEDIAVERSE (957252​). Much care has been taken with ethical procedures and data protection in all three projects. Special attention has been paid to copyright in MEDIAVERSE, focusing on a theoretical framework for [...]

Understanding our User-Centered Design Process in TRACTION Alina Striner and Pablo Cesar Centrum Wiskunde & Informatica – The Netherlands Evaluation of the Mediavault tool with SINEA creatives, December 1st 2020, Barcelona, Spain. Image courtesy of Irene Calvís Rovira. A main goal of the TRACTION project is to use technology to support co-creation and consumption of opera content by diverse communities across the European Union. The project comprises three trials, INO (Irish National Opera), SAMP (Sociedade Artística Musical dos Pousos), and LICEU (Gran Teatre Del Liceu). Based [...]

TRACTION meets with La Fura dels Baus Online presentation – 3rd December 2020 On December 3rd 2020, Project Coordinator Mikel Zorrilla (VICOMTECH) presented the TRACTION tools to La Fura dels Baus theatre company, in light of a possible collaboration. Also in attendance to the meeting was project partner and accessibility expert Pilar Orero (UAB), to give perspective on the possible avenues for accessibility the potential collaboration would entail. The Catalan theatre company is known for their reconceptualization of the stage through elaborate large-scale performances held in unconventional [...]

Opera Co-creation: Video Adaptation and Streaming Challenges Anderson Simiscuka, Mohammed Amine Togou, Noel O’Connor and Gabriel-Miro Muntean Dublin City University - Ireland Immersive Player video selection list (under development), 2020. Based on the ImAc Player.[i] One of the main aspects of the TRACTION project is to use technology for the co-creation and consumption of opera content. The project is happening at a time in which more and more people are subscribing to video streaming platforms and watching content online, due to the Coronavirus pandemic. As reported [...]

Disrupting ritual with community opera Bill Bankes-Jones Ronald Samm and Anna Patalong in Pagliacci. Scottish Opera 2018. (Photo James Glossop, courtesy Scottish Opera) The world over, opera audiences dress up to come together and scrutinise one another, in buildings designed to encourage this: to venerate the art and to flatter its audience. The public has to master and collude in all the arcane secrets of opera-going — When do I cough, when do I clap? Everything exists to enshrine and elevate these rituals for their very [...]

Live Performance and Virtual Reality By Terry Madigan, Camille Donegan and Aisling Phelan of Virtual Reality Ireland The arena of live performance and VR is nascent but extremely fast moving with technology evolving at a rapid pace which is only increasing in speed to keep up with new Covid-specific demands. At a time when most theatre, opera houses and other cultural institutions are closed or capacities are extremely curtailed, the cultural sector is suffering through an unprecedented time of crisis. Prior to Covid, explorations of remote performance [...]