Development of the Co-creation Space in the Second Year Alina Stiner (CWI) – 28th January 2022 A main goal of the TRACTION project is to support social transformation of inequality, using technology to help diverse communities across the European Union participate in the creation of opera. To support artistic co-creation with these communities, we are developing the Co-Creation Space (CCS), a platform that supports professionals and community members from diverse backgrounds to engage in creative discussion about media in a “safe space.”In the first year, we gathered an [...]

Fourth meeting with the International Advisory Board Susannah Fraser (UAB) – 19th January 2022 As the third and final year of project gets into its stride, members of the TRACTION consortium met online for the fourth time with the project’s international advisory board (ICAT) on January 17th 2022. The ICAT comprises several experts from the fields of academia, technology and performing arts whose role it is to observe, guide and offer feedback to the TRACTION consortium on the fulfillment of the project objectives. At the meeting were [...]

Testing the Co-creation Stage for other performing arts Mikel Zorrilla,  Vicomtech - December 21st 2021 TRACTION is, among others, developing a new tool that connects communities and individuals in real-time, allowing multiple co-located stages and participants to perform together. We have named this tool Co-creation Stage. The Co-creation Stage has been designed to perform opera from different locations, and it has been already tested in real opera performances. However, the TRACTION team is convinced that this tool, apart from being very valuable for opera performances, is [...]

TRACTION Pre-recorded Content Adaptation Mohammed Amine Togou, Anderson Simiscuka, Rohit Verma, Noel E. O’Connorand Gabriel-Miro Muntean – 1st December 2021Since the emergence of COVID-19, many opera houses have been temporarily shut down, pushing artists and artistic institutions to move their activities online to survive. This situation has contributed to the growth of digital art, where artists use new or customisable technological tools that enable them to collaborate remotely to produce captivating performances. These plays are recorded in the highest audio and video quality and are made available to [...]

Preparing for the ‘La Gata Perduda’ showcase at Liceu Susannah Fraser (UAB) -  5th November 2021 In October 2021, our technical partners Centrum Wiskunde (CWI) made their way from Amsterdam to meet with members of Vicomtech and UAB at Liceu opera house Barcelona ahead of the ‘La Gata Perduda’ (The Lost Cat) community opera showcase, due to take place in the grand foyer of Liceu on March 19th 2022. The leaders of Work Package 2 made their way to Liceu to prepare for the implementation of [...]

TRACTION at VR Days Europe 2021 4th November 2021 The TRACTION project will be presenting their work at the 7th edition of VR Days Europe conference which will take place in Amsterdam, during November 13-17, 2021. Though the event will take place both face-to-face and online, we will participate in the online Virtual World of the VR Days. The online event will consist of 10-minute presentations (and some extra time for questions and answers) between the 15th and 17th of November, and our slots are [...]

Co-creating a Virtual Reality Opera Camille Donegan – 30th September 2021 A participant playing a VR experience with a VR headset and controllers. In-person co-creation workshops began on 19th August 2021. It was remarkable after 18 months of not being able to be face-to-face with people, to feel the energy of a collective again. A key part of these workshops with the community was to bring the participants through the possibilities of virtual reality and the unique storytelling attributes inherent with the medium. On that first [...]

Opera co-creation for a social transformation. TRACTION, the new concept to revolutionize Opera September 16th 2021 Combining the efforts of nine participants from five different European countries with collective expertise in research, business, art and social perspectives, TRACTION was launched in January 2020. With such a bold new project on the horizon, it was a shock to all when shortly after its launch, the COVID pandemic gripped the globe, causing disruption to people and industries all over the world. In such uneasy times and with [...]

Learning by doing François Matarasso - Thursday July 22nd 2021 Photograph by Joaquim Dâmaso - SAMP Opera and digital technology both begin as code, lines of complicated figures that seem alien to non-professionals, like Egyptian hieroglyphs. But the arcane languages used by composers and software engineers to develop their ideas are not the point of their work. They are only the means by which these professionals work towards their goals—goals that remain lifeless until they can be tested in human experience. The work is validated only when [...]

€50,000 Fedora Digital Prize awarded to… Irish National Opera’s Out of the Ordinary a new, virtual reality community opera, for performance in 2022.   Irish National Opera’s virtual reality community opera Out of the Ordinary has been selected as the winner of this year’s coveted Fedora Digital Prize. Peter Maniura, Director of the IMZ Academy and Chair of the Digital Jury, said “The jury was very impressed by the high quality and imagination of the project led by Irish National Opera, and its ambition to redefine community [...]