Teatro dei Portali is an XR show based on the idea of multiple realities accessible from AR virtual portals placed in the performance venue. Those realities are different imaginative spaces, with different rules and styles. From a realistic forest, to its decomposition and alteration through the use particles, to the representation of purely abstract geometric figures, these worlds behind portals address different ways to look at reality, as well as different interactions between the performer and the virtual world. Sound follows similar trajectories, alternating songs to soundscapes to soundtracks making use of noise and extended techniques. The result is a broad spectrum of possibilities. From their juxtaposition emerges a subtle dramaturgy.

The first performance also included three musicians from Hong Kong New Music Ensemble (which commissioned the show) performing with live-electronics. Part of the musical performance was, so to say, conducted by me from the virtual world. The visual notation to be performed was streamed from VR to ipads placed in front of the performers. That was a way to connect sound and gesture, by the real-time transformation of gestural trajectories into real notation.

 It has been performed in two versions: immersive (5 and 8 surrounding projectors) and front-facing (mega-screen). It always employs multi-channel spatial audio.

This show is a major artistic and technical undertaking, with most of the audio/visual material entirely created by me or modified in substantial ways. The multi-device networked system, running on several machines at the same time, and performing video cluster rendering, spatial audio live-processing and diffusion, VR tracking, and interaction management has all been designed by me from scratch, using Unity and Max/MSP.