ΑΚΡΙΤΩΝ ΜΟΥΣΙΚΗ

Acritan figures in Music heritage

Final event: April 23, 2013 12:00 EET 2013

 

The idea

"ΑΚΡΙΤΩΝ ΜΟΥΣΙΚΗ (Akriton Mousiki)" was a live interactive performance audiovisual event combining Music and Digital Shadow Theatre. The performance was inspired by the Greek Acritan heritage and included the colaborative preparation, co-creation and realization of an online event between multiple distant schools linked together via videoconference. During the "Linkcast" (webcasted videoconference) pupils from four acritic schools presented a virtual-stage role-playing educational activity by moving digital figures (e-shadow platform) accompanied with shared live Music performance. 

The main aspect of this event was the "audio response" between multiple sites. "Akriton Mousiki" explored the possibilities of using video conference as a means to produce a shared musical activity broadcasted live to a third recepient. Unlike similar practices of this nature, this linkcast was characterized by the fact that the audio material sent by a sender not only triggers the action of the receiver but also vice versa. This specific action between two sounding-bodies is the core interaction that gives birth to the musical phenomenon of "sympraxis".

Compensating with internet latency there are two significant aspects of this issue, within a teleconference environment. The Audiovisual Linear Interaction (ALI) represent the situation where one recepient responds to a leading audiovisual signal (e.g. Canon form in Music) but the final audio product does not affect the sender (leader). Audiovisual Bideractional Interaction (ABI) represent the situation where multiple participants can take or share the role of the leader (host) within a live event and the final audio material affects all participants. In the ABI form of interaction participants not only respond to a leading audiovisual signal (e.g. Canon form in Music) but they can also take the leading role as well, following the flow of events in a Linkcast scenario (e.g. Chamber Music).

 

  

 

 

(Please allow flash in your browser, or click here to download directly)

 

The initial Linkcast scenario

 

The blueprint of the linkcast scenario was derived from the “Let Us Share The Music” activity recognized as good practice from the Pedagogical Institute Good-Practices Database. The scenario involved pupils from Gaudos, Karpathos, Kastelorizo and Cyprus. The initially proposed scenario was as follows:

1. The school in Gaudos begins the event by presenting the Acritic heritage in general.
2. A music theme from classical music inspired by the acritic tradition is performed in Athens.
3. The school in Cyprus continues with the acritic song of Digenis Akritas. At the same time pupils from Crete move figures of «Digenis in the Marble Threshing Fields”.
4. Karpathos presents “sirmatika” (traditional songs from Karpathos) and excerpts from the song of Armouris. At the same time pupils from Cyprus move e-shadow figures inspired by the song.  [ Samuel Baud-Bovy, Chansons du Dodecanese, t. 2, Societé d'Édition "Les Belles Lettres", Paris 1938 /   Samuel Baud-Bovy,“La chanson d' Armouris et sa tradition orale”, Byzantion, v. 13 (1938)]
5. The school in Crete presents Kypridimos from the scene of joust contest with Erotokritos (epic poem by Vicenzos Kornaros).The school in Gaudos move figures from this scene.
6. The linkcast closes with classical Music from Athens.

 

 

The final Linkcast scenario

The final Linkcast scenario was based upon the educational needs of every site that took part on the event following the phases of the good practice.  This scenario consisted of four aspects of streaming events: the flow of sites succeeding each other (1^st column) and three columns of interaction:

• the flow of the e-shadow theatre events (yellow column),
• the flow of Powerpoint events (purple column)
• the flow of audio events (cyan column)

 

The scenario included an advanced interaction between five remote sites. Part of the dialogues arranged for the event was based upon the Byzantine epos of Digenis Akritas from the University of Crete Anemi Database.

For a detail view please click here or at the image.

 

Scheduling / Preparation

The scheduling of this web event included rehearsals, studying and also the finalization of the Linkcast scenario. During the whole preparation-period teachers and pupils tested the videoconference environment in live performance-practice conditions. A time-schedule was compiled according to the needs of each place in collaboration with each one individually or all the sites together as real-time participants.
The whole preparation was designed, coordinated and hosted by Mr. Petros Stergiopoulos in Athens (the place were the event was virtually hosted).
 

 

Table of scheduling and monitoring
Time-table	http://doodle.com/c2g8c5akfaiy4fzv
Rehearsals
Diary	https://www.google.com/calendar/embed?src=iivhrkkt8dchfplvafrfdfo7vo%40group.calendar.google.com&ctz=Europe/Athens

  

Music as a performance art.

Music as background gave a new dimension to the event as a performance art project. Live Music was presented in Athens (Petros Bouras: Piano teacher, Dimitris Kouzis: Violin teacher), Cyprus (Fr. Demetrios: Kanun), Kastelorizo (Alexandra Nikolaidou elementary school teacher: Mandolin and pupil from 5^th grade) and Karpathos (Magda Katsipanou Music teacher, with pupil’s choir). A traditional song inspired by the 36 Greek Danses of Nikos Skalkotas was adapted for elementary school teacher Kyriaki Triantafyllidou (clarinet) and her 1^st grade pupil (in cajon). The song was performed as a theme-sequence between the two sites. Pages were turned by Ms Katsipanou from Karpathos and the rest of the participant sites were the live audience.

 

 

 

The OPEN DISCOVERY SPACE project

The development of the “AKRITON MOUSIKI” activity is the first attempt to produce advanced interaction scenarios between 5 remote places via live videoconference involving Music as a performance art.

A much greater effort for creating versatile educational communities that will work on creating, conducting and performing such online music events is now in progress. Towards this task the OPEN DISCOVERY SPACE platform is becoming a key pillar for the development of such events in the future.

 

 

 

 

An asset for future development

The live attendance during the preparation stage as well as the audiovisual recording of the activity was processed by distant schools as spectators. In this way an independent community of live-performance distant-interaction participants and hosts was also prepared. Teachers in these schools will be the future hosts of similar events by adapting or developing similar scenarios based on the experience gained. Within the Open Discovery Space community a series of online workshops has been triggered by the success of the above action.

 

 

 

The Linkcast website

The final Linkcast website was announced only to the remote sites involved. The preparation though was monitored by school-teacher attendees using credentials given by the project/activity coordinator.

 

 

 

 

 

Technological design / Research & Support

Technical University of Crete
Laboratory of Distributed Multimedia Information Systems and Applications (TUC/MUSIC)

eshadow Platform
Nektarios Moumoutzis
Marios Christoulakis
Andreas Pitsiladis

 

Design & Live streaming coordinator / Online Music coordinator

Petros Stergiopoulos

 

Pedagogical planning / Realization

Chrisoula Charismaidou (Kastelorizo)
Alexandra Nikolaidou (Kastelorizo)
Kyriaki Triantafyllidou (Gaudos)
Magda Katsipanou (Karpathos)
Vangelis Mitakidis (Karpathos)
Giorgos Karatzias (Karpathos)
Alexandros Kofteros (Cyprus)
Petros Stergiopoulos (Athens)

 

Artistic design & curator

Dimitrios Skourtelis

  

Screenshots

 

Videos

These video excerpts are live reproduction of the actual multicast environment recorded in Adobe Connect Pro v. 7.5 platform server. Access to the audiovisual content is restricted only to those who are registered in the Distance learning Music Agoge project. For credentials please don't hesitate to contact with the project coordinator Mr. Petros Stergiopoulos plagiavlitis@yahoo.gr .
(Please refresh your browser in case audio stream initiates twice).

Title:  EAlink_ΑΚΡΙΤΩΝ_ΜΟΥΣΙΚΗ_2013_86_Αθήνα-0
Duration:  00:06:44
Disk usage:  31394,7 KB
URL for Viewing:  http://connect.ea.gr/p24726158/

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Title:  EAlink_ΑΚΡΙΤΩΝ_ΜΟΥΣΙΚΗ_2013_87_Αθήνα-1_Κύπρος-1
Duration:  00:09:38
Disk usage:  46927,8 KB
URL for Viewing:  http://connect.ea.gr/p81372823/

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Title:  EAlink_ΑΚΡΙΤΩΝ_ΜΟΥΣΙΚΗ_2013_88_Κύπρος-2_Κάρπαθος-1/2
Duration:  00:19:41
Disk usage:  76738,2 KB
URL for Viewing:  http://connect.ea.gr/p10014687/

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Title:  EAlink_ΑΚΡΙΤΩΝ_ΜΟΥΣΙΚΗ_2013_89_Κάρπαθος-3_Αθήνα-2_Γαύδος-1
Duration:  00:09:16
Disk usage:  41438,0 KB
URL for Viewing:  http://connect.ea.gr/p33317017/

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Title:  EAlink_ΑΚΡΙΤΩΝ_ΜΟΥΣΙΚΗ_2013_90_Γαύδος-2_Καστελόριζο-1 (ABI_in_Music / Skalkotas-Traditional)
Duration:  00:09:29
Disk usage:  43301,6 KB
URL for Viewing:  http://connect.ea.gr/p32586944/

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Title:  EAlink_ΑΚΡΙΤΩΝ_ΜΟΥΣΙΚΗ_2013_91_Καστελόριζο-2
Duration:  00:12:31
Disk usage:  56996,8 KB
URL for Viewing:  http://connect.ea.gr/p65201206/

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Title:  EAlink_ΑΚΡΙΤΩΝ_ΜΟΥΣΙΚΗ_2013_92_Αποφώνηση
Duration:  00:03:52
Disk usage:  19125,3 KB
URL for Viewing:  http://connect.ea.gr/p31856871/

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Publications

• "Akriton Mousiki" is part of the paper by the title:  "When eshadow met ALICE and the Akritans" that was accepted at the International Conference on Adults Education (Bucharest, October 2013). The Conference was part of the ALICE project (Project Number: 518106-LLP-1-2011-1-IT-GRUNDTVIG-GMP).

 

• "Akriton Mousiki" action was chosen to be presented among the 8 (out of 21) practices of the "Use of ICT in the Educational Process" Annual Conference, March 29, 2014 in Nicosia, Cyprus. The conference was sponsored by Microsoft and it was organized under the auspices of the Cypriot Ministry of Education and Culture and the Cypriot Pedagogical Institute.

 

The “Akriton Mousiki” Linkcast was based on the idea by Mr Nektarios Moumoutzis, Researcher &  Professor of Informatics in  TUC/MUSIC and it is developed as part of the OPEN DISCOVERY SPACE project.