Apr 05, 2016
'Music x Technology' is the latest venture from tech-giant Microsoft into the world of electronic music.
The newly launched platform showcases musicians (such as deadmau5 and ATTLAS) using Microsoft programs and resources as they go about their creative process, with assistance from Carlo Van de Roer (of Satellite Lab) to present the interactive photography feature. “Photography and music have a long history. With making these portraits, we wanted to think about the relationship between these musicians and an audience – with technology as the conduit for that relationship,” de Roer said to Resource Mag Online.
At the heart of Music x Technology is the notion that today’s artists work at an intersection of music, art and technology. “It’s the merging of studio and performance that is the most exciting frontier,” ATTLAS said in an interview with Dancing Astronaut. “When you get things like [Microsoft] Surface [Tablet] where you can merge these two worlds of studio and performance and turn them into this new hybrid, the benefit is for the performer, the benefit is for the listener, and it only helps music.”
The interactive artist portraits enable visitors to control light sources in each scene to highlight different aspects, giving viewers a first-hand perspective into unique artistic processes. "To go from the initial paradigm of just person on a stage with their instrument, to this morphed experience - where it's partly theatre, partly cinematic, partly musical," Alan Palomo (of Neon Indian) said in a press release from Microsoft, quoted on Music Times. "It's cool to go to a show and not just have the expectation that it's that one thing."
Microsoft have always kept up to date with the latest music happenings, originally designing OneBeat Labs to tap into the dance music boom a few years ago, before launching their EDM application for Xbox 360.
Experience the creative process of deadmau5, Neon Indian and more at Music x Technology here.
Image: Microsoft