Ouverture (October 2022)

Hello, and welcome back, dear readers, to the Song: Future blog!

No, the name isn't a spelling mistake. It's French for opening, and is also a play on overture, because it's the Song project, and this is talking about it's opening. It's clever, alright?

The leaves are falling, there's a chill in the air, and the evenings are drawing in. Skeletons and spooky cobwebs adorn shop windows, and the smell of pumpkin spice lingers pleasantly in the air. The season of warm jumpers, cosy blankets and crackling fires approaches unabated.

That's right, it's the end of October, and that can mean but one thing. Yes, you guessed it; the Song: Future performance will soon be drawing to a close.

I know, I know, it feels like it opened only yesterday. But what a run it's been! We've welcomed visitors from across the country, in groups large and small, and heard some fascinating stories of the textile industry, its decline, and the rise of the creative sector.

Visitors enjoy the AR at the Song: the Future performance at Leeds Industrial Museum

Of course, just because the experience has already opened, it doesn't mean that our work is done. Quite the contrary! In fact, we've been working hard through the performance's run to improve the user experience based on visitor and staff feedback. It quickly became apparent, for example, that only allowing a single text response for each of Lu's questions was not open enough to tease interesting answers from visitors. Often they would simply answer 'yes' or 'no' assuming that there would be some follow-up, only to be disappointed when this proved not to be the case. After discussing this with our friends and colleagues at Megaverse, they added in a simple edit option, like one might find in any of the common instant messenger services we all use daily, allowing for longer answers to be included regardless of the initial reply.

As well as improving the performance as it runs, we've also been looking forward to the future, and the next steps in the Song project. In many ways collecting the data is only the beginning; the stories that we gleam from your visits will be put into a number of creative projects, from graphic displays to original yue opera performances. So watch this space to see how it all unfolds!

In the more immediate future, the team at the University of Leeds has been working hard to prepare the Digital Performance and the UK-China Creative Industries symposium that we are hosting in the coming days. Our partners from across the project - funding bodies, digital partners, interested parties from the performative and creative worlds - will come together to discuss the state of the art in digital performance, break down exactly what we've learnt from the Song: Future project, and how it can be applied in the future. With so much feedback from the public, we'll certainly have a lot to discuss!

That's all from me this time, I look forward to bringing you the news of our next steps as they emerge!