Internet2 for Everyone

Internet2 has been a metaphor for collaborative, interactive exchange that goes beyond the traditional talking-heads technology of video conferencing. I2 has been utilized with great effect in the sciences in which laboratories exchange process and control through distance collaboration, and by the arts that have created new structures through simultaneous performances, of written and improvised materials. But for all that, the limit has been the control of an elite group that requires extensive technological support. The elite group consists of universities, research institutions, and government organizations that pay an extravagant amount each month to maintain the monopoly and insure an open (traffic-free) I2 highway.

This Internet2 was the better Internet that we couldn't use without being a part of the elite.

Now we see new applications emerging that are low cost and permit a reasonable flow of images and sound between and among sites. Most are still conceived along the lines of talking-heads video technology. Skype is being used world-wide as a simple means of connecting video and sound. Recently a choreographer in New York used Skype to choreograph and process a dancer in in Korea. The results were impressive, a good as any of the vBrick connections we have used in the first half of this decade for I2 events. Furthermore, this choreographer did not need to clear the Internet highway in order to connect in "real time." Skype permits only one to one connections, so to have multiple streams of audio and video, you would need to employ multiple laptops at each site which could feed into mixers at each location. Also multiple sites would require additional hardware and coordination. Multiplying simple configurations can sometimes be fiendishly complex.

iChat provides the possible of three sites connecting through a single computer, but the addition of a computer and Canopus (device for signal conversion) for each site can provide an opportunity for high quality sound and video at each participating location. Two experiments with New York University, University of Colorado, and Bergen Community College resulted in successful application of the iChat technology for simultaneous public performances at each location: October 15th performance Trying to Connect, and the recent March 13th performance of Stayin' in Touch.

These performances were supported by ITS (Information Technology Services) staff at Colorado and BCC, but was handled by the performers and participants at NYU, although one of the participants was an accomplished video and audio engineer, but not on the NYU ITS staff. In the past such performances had been dependent on ITS support.

These shared performances demonstrated that simultaneous artistic collaboration and performance could be successfully achieved with the technology now available to everyone. It is a matter of adding microphones, speakers, projectors, video cameras to generate the material to be exchanged. This can be improvised or prepared and pre-processed, or a combination of both.

We are starting to see more and more collaborators sharing work over great distances in planning and performance. This creative application of technology in the hands of artists promises to usher in a renaissance of artistic growth that will no doubt challenge technology to serve as an enabling agency.