The virtual space offers flexibility and accessibility. People can participate in global events, collaborate with colleagues around the world, and access resources and information from anywhere. Digital technologies have profoundly transformed the way the world is perceived and interacted with. The boundary between the physical and the virtual is increasingly blurred, and the two dimensions intertwine in ways never seen before, opening up new opportunities and challenges in daily lives, businesses, and culture, effectively transforming the world from concrete to abstract, thanks to the fluidity of navigation provided by the ubiquity of digital devices, such as smartphones, tablets, and computers. This interconnection between the real and digital world has changed the perception of time and space, making it possible to work, communicate, and entertain ourselves from anywhere.
Early Earl was created during Dganit Elyakim's workshop Composing for Virtual Spaces at the Royal Conservatoire of The Hague in March 2023, and it is a virtual interactive composition, which to some extent could be defined as a "musical video game." Essentially, it is a game with a cube rolling on a platform derived from a score by Earle Brown, December 1952. The graphical signs of the score - squares and horizontal and vertical rectangles - are transformed into obstacles that the cube must hit to emit sounds, with which players can create their own composition. Early Earl is a project aimed at creating a more engaging and rich virtual environment, where anyone can experience composition in a simple and playful way, as well as deepen their knowledge of graphic scores and American composers of the 1960s. Early Earl is accessible to anyone with a computer through the itch.io platform, at the web address:
The boundary between "video game" and "virtual interactive composition" is very blurred here, as the work actually appropriates some of the typical features of the gaming environment. The inclusion of elements drawn from games and particularly from computer games in audiovisual works is a theme already explored by several authors in the contemporary landscape, including the aforementioned Stefan Prins (with the aforementioned Generation Kill, which incorporates game controllers for 4 of the performers) and Marko Ciciliani, as mentioned earlier in collaboration with Barbara Lüneburg, but also for example Christof Ressi, with his work Game Over1.
Ressi's work is the one that comes closest to Early Earl, while still being more directed towards the gaming dimension. Game Over, in fact, is an audiovisual piece incorporating motion sensors for the clarinet, which guide the action visible on the screen through the sound landscape that is effectively composed (or distributed over time) by the performer. As a result, "winning" the game is neither the goal nor the sole motivation that drives the performer; on the contrary, the performer is encouraged to make spontaneous, even irrational decisions if they serve the musical outcome. Additionally, they can intentionally exploit game mechanics to shape the piece in the way they desire. To make things even more interesting, the game engine can interpret the code at runtime, so another person (usually the composer themselves) can modify the game or trigger events in real-time. For example, one could decide to teleport the avatar to a random location, change the tile map, alter physical properties, or introduce glitches. This can disrupt the regular course of the game and challenge the player even more. In the concert setting, the performer often encounters things they have never seen in rehearsal, producing truly spontaneous reactions. As a work of art, the piece is an open and ongoing reflection on the aesthetic and psychological nature of computer games.
This focus on the dynamic by which "playability," meaning the correct functioning of the game according to its rules and objectives, and artistic performance, meaning the aesthetic care of the piece in and of itself, are constantly vying for attention, is the crux of interest in these types of productions. They can be more closely examined by starting from the abstract of Ciciliani and Lüneburg's research presented in the first chapter, from which some important considerations emerge about defining the intersection between game and sound composition:
Games usually consist of formulating rules and objectives that together form a system inviting players to act according to its order and structure. This rather generic description could already reveal the intrinsic musical potential of games. Music has always been governed by an implicit agreement on a set of rules: with every score realized in a performance, the performer accepts the encoded directives it contains; furthermore, styles belonging to a particular genre or historical period constitute a set of implicit rules, extending the instructions of the score with multiple details that cannot be encoded in symbols. Despite this seemingly rigid system, musicians have always found ample space for variability, interpretation, and self-expression. It seems that no score is so confining as to leave no room for musical interpretation. Rules are also instructions that tell the player of a game - although we can also apply it to the musician - what to do in a particular situation. Just as a score is a description of the realization of a piece, so the rules of a game are a description of its realization. Both depend on someone playing them.2
Although there is no unanimous consensus on definitions and formulations, there seems to be a certain degree of agreement among game theorists regarding the importance of rules. Furthermore, most of them agree, although to a lesser extent than rules, on the orientation of games towards objectives. In this aspect, the dimension of games diverges from that of composition and art in general - it is not decidedly the majority of artistic expressions, in fact, to operate in pursuit of goals and results intended in a physical, deterministic sense; on the contrary, generally the structure of a work of art, in whatever discipline it belongs to, relies exactly on the opposite mechanism, namely the contrast to the linearity that such determination of actions creates. In competitions, there is a shorter trajectory, a faster athlete, a stronger contender, and therefore unequivocally closer to victory. In contrast, in the artistic realm, this clarity does not apply, as there is no unequivocal definition of objectives: a painting does not automatically become more "astonishing" depending on the type of brush used; a musical composition does not necessarily gain interest in relation to the instrument for which it is composed; a theatrical representation is not necessarily "victorious" due to the presence of actors with more fascinating features. This distinction exists in general, but especially because it is precisely in the artistic field that it is not possible to reach a universal consensus on what constitutes "beauty" in art, what is "interesting" or "winning," maintaining the comparison with the ludic field, while in a race the winner is unquestionably the one who arrives first and in a game the one who scores more points. These parameters represent discrete, objective, and measurable measures, unlike those used in the artistic field.
Yet the beauty and undeniable fascination of such an intersection of disciplines lie exactly in the distance between the two, and in the specificity that emphasizes such distance. Even in the mere process of seeking an intersection of modes of expression and development of a ludic/artistic work, numerous points of interest and areas of exploration can be found. Furthermore, there is the opportunity to reconsider through different systems the very practice of composition itself and the uses and methodologies that conventionally determine and regulate it - potentially an extremely creative element, once again, in its own right. For clarity: the mere inclination that drives the composer or researcher to ask "How can I make a piece more like a game? What can the objectives be? What can be considered a victory?" places the essence of composition itself in a different perspective, far removed from academic environments or more traditional views on form.
It is also important to note that a path towards the intersection of the two practices has been explored from both perspectives: that concerning video games, with their quest for greater attention to aesthetics and the influence of the disciplines involved in achieving objectives, and that which sees the artistic world seeking a more purposeful (if not competitive) dimension of interplay. For the former category, the recent development of digital animation graphics software has certainly allowed for significant visual improvement, just as modern technologies enable ever better quality of sound even with relatively inexpensive and common instruments, and the inclusion of interactive aspects in terms of motor skills is increasingly common and easy to achieve, starting from the early Wii consoles by Nintendo from 2005. These are certainly impressive levels of production, but intermedially speaking, they relegate the roles of the visual, sound, and motor dimensions to mere executive functionality, so much so that they often take a back seat to the dynamics of the game, and users often ignore these contributions. In this case, the point is not an intersection of fields but the simple nature of the "videogame" dimension, which is mainly recurring in the commercial environment. With the exponential spread of video games, however, an artistic movement has also emerged that insists precisely on such categories as a strength, called "Art game.”
In relation to dance and theater, even clearer could be all the experiences that are now considered within Virtual Reality, operating through the reception of motion data via various types of sensors and the translation of such data into movements within digital environments. "Art Game" thus emerges as a discipline that combines two opposite artistic fields and benefits from the convergence of developments in these two instances in relation. Particularly relevant is Rebecca Cannon's definition, which asserts that "Art games explore the game format primarily as a new mode for structuring narrative, cultural criticism, and art.3" The game as a mode for structuring narrative - a structure that, it must be added, changes from game to game, from performance to performance, and from player to player, or from performer to performer, thus providing unparalleled freshness to a score in this flexible and engaging way.
To fully grasp all the influences, it would be necessary to review the history of visual art, carefully following the changes that led painting to photography and finally to videomaking. Such an analysis is necessary to understand the direction in which this discipline has moved and to relate it to others, in order to grasp the nature of the mixtures to which Early Earl belongs. This analysis is of too great proportions to be addressed here, but it is worth noting one of the relatively recent transformations. Indeed, while the identity of visual art - inherent in the fixity of time - was undermined and called into question by the birth of cinema, in a mixture of perfect reproducibility and the creation of an extended temporal fixity, painting, sculpture, and graphic design "shifted," reclaiming their purposes through the occupation and infiltration of the spaces of other disciplines. This is how sound projects of an installative nature were born, in which the fixed nature of visual art has taken precedence over the performance with the typical temporal duration of music, producing many musical artistic realities more towards installations than anything else. This kind of work has opened up new perspectives in the field of art, where the visual component and artistic expression have taken on a prominent role compared to traditional performance, which usually is characterized by limited temporal duration and repeatability. This change has led to the emergence of numerous artistic expressions and new currents of thought. The installative approach has opened up new possibilities for musical artists, allowing them to explore the relationship between sound and physical space, through the creative use of architectural environments, lighting, visual and sound elements to create multisensory experiences that challenge traditional expectations related to music and art, once again blurring the boundaries between artistic disciplines.
Early Earl stands at the intersection of all these inputs: a repeatable and reproducible installation, musical and with defined graphics, although the cinematic instance is also characterized by interactivity, and it is in this that the (video) game intervenes, giving the work a vital dimension over time, breaking reproducibility and making each "performance" dynamic and unique. Early Earl is the convergence of multiple structural elaborations and evolutions of different media that act simultaneously, positioning itself as a sort of apex of an imaginary organizational chart of medial intersections. This video game/interactive installation involves different media in relationships that are highly dependent on each other, also succeeding in aligning the game objective (the purpose, the end of the gameplay) with the objective of a musical performance. The purpose of Early Earl is not, in fact, to live or die, to defeat an enemy, or to win a race: the gameplay mode of this work is based solely on wandering within a very simple, completely visible space scattered with solid figures. The walls on the sides do not allow for elimination, and there are no scores or life bars, weapons, or objects to collect or use to advance to the next level. The sole purpose of Early Earl is to create a musical composition through the impact of the cube with the visible obstacles - and in this, the installation would not differ from many others, or from musical pieces like those previously analyzed, the game pieces, which involve a set of rules and limitations but are fundamentally free in the choice of musical material and its distribution over time. However, Early Earl differs for several reasons: the interface, which allows sound production through a simple computer keyboard, thus bypassing all the issues related to the possession of traditional performance knowledge and skills; the absence of any type of performing intermediary, meaning the lack of a third element, a performer/player or a composer/director, inevitably carrying an additional depersonalizing interpretation filter, and which would also require the establishment of defined interaction modalities with it; the foundation of Earl Brown's score, which gives the overall performance a historical dimension and depth of thought, as well as coherence in the choice of sounds, thus avoiding the specter of complete randomness and disorder that would result from it. In this sense, furthermore, Early Earl reveals all its educational potential: if this kind of work is so difficult for most formally trained and academically instructed performers, it will be impossible to disseminate knowledge about it to those who are not in the field. Through Early Earl, however, it is possible to create familiarity with such complex material by passing through the dynamics of the game, which facilitate learning in and of themselves and also remove the initial level of mistrust and skepticism that pervades graphic works.
The audience and performer correspond, as well as the performer corresponding to the composer on this occasion. This last coincidence makes the level of participation truly flexible and tailored to the user/listener, who can decide how to manage the experience in terms of time, duration, distribution of events, and intensity (thus, musical form). The high degree of autonomy in the enjoyment and exercise of the work is also a significant element. By allowing the user to access the work and use it at any time and on any occasion (provided they have a device to connect to), without the mediation of a specific artistic occasion or space, there is the possibility of achieving a remarkable level of distribution and dissemination, as well as greater democratization of art. To access this kind of video game, in fact, it is not necessary to pay any ticket or fee, nor is it necessary to have access to or visit specific places at certain times. Finally, the choice of a familiar interface like that of racing games, although in this case represented by a mobile cube, facilitates the exercise and practice of the installation, together with the choice of very simple commands characteristic of the gaming world such as the ASDW keys and the space bar, respectively ←↓→↑ and jump, contributing to making Early Earl a work of incredible accessibility and enjoyment without any sacrifice in terms of meaning or aesthetics.
Interaction has proven to be a highly relevant parameter, especially after the experience with Mr. White. Returning to the aforementioned research by Ciciliani and Lüneburg, the perception of the game dynamics by the participating audience has, in most cases, been different from the expectations of the composers, who have encountered some difficulty in accurately grasping the events and following the progress of the game from the outside. This is certainly due to communication and visual issues, which can certainly be significantly improved, but it remains a fact that since the audience is not personally involved in the game itself, their attention to this parameter might be similar to that of watching a chess tournament as a spectator. Therefore, it may not be particularly effective or engaging. In Early Earl, however, given the ease of access and not only the possibility but even the requirement for the player to simultaneously take on the roles of both audience and performer, intellectual and emotional participation is guaranteed and effective.
Currently, an expansion the gameplay of Early Earl to include multiplayer functionality is undergoing considerations, given the limitation, especially conceptually, of the current single-player mode. The multiplayer mode could be realized by dividing players into different boards, each characterized by a defined and different set of frequencies, allowing for the experience of each performer's uniqueness. Additionally, the current video game features a fixed and unalterable frequency scheme, consistent across all players and performances. This too could be a parameter worthy of further research and experimentation.