Visualising the Voice of Maria Callas

A six-day workshop in TouchDesigner, using point cloud data and virtual reality headsets. The aim of the workshop was to offer the opportunity to the participant artists to understand the use of creative new media tools. The participants experimented with the point cloud data of the scanned interior spaces of the Greek National Opera building designed by Renzo Piano that resulted from the preceding research project by DmLab, and looked into ways of capturing interactions between the voice of Maria Callas and the spaces of the Greek National Opera. The culmination of the workshop resulted in a VR installation exhibition held at the foyer of the Greek National Opera from December 1st to 21st, 2023.

This installation focused on exploring the long-standing relationship between architecture and music through an experimental approach that makes use of virtual reality tools. The ten select participants experimented with sounds drawn from specific opera excerpts performed by Maria Callas to mark the centennial anniversary of her birth.

A Greek National Opera (GNO) partnership with the Digital Media Lab (DmLab) of the Technical University of Crete. The event forms part of the Greek National Opera’s tribute programme marking the centennial anniversary of Maria Callas’ birth. It is also part of the 2023 UNESCO Maria Callas Anniversary proposed by the Hellenic Ministry of Culture.

TouchDesigner was the main appliction for the VR experience using Meta's VR headsets, Oculus Quest 3 and Oculus Pro. We used the latest point cloud tool set, together with a collection of custom tools to manipulate the point cloud in real time. The participant artists formed 5 teams, and each one produced a short experience using a provided template project. In the end all these were merged into a single project so the viewers can experience all works one after the other together with the intro section and titles. A template skeleton file was provided to ensure the intergration of all projects would be possible without any major overhead. Many of the works used Maria Callas' audio to drive the deformations which brought visuals and audio in sync.