YTConcerto

Andreja Andric

Automatic real time YouTube video collage based on random dictionary search where most queries contain a name of a musical instrument, and the instrument changes from time to time. (2018)

YTConcerto is a real-time computer generated mashup of YouTube videos, in 8 video channels per screen. The algorithm that drives the work explores the YouTube recommendation feature by playing randomly chosen fragments of videos that are retrieved by either submitting a randomly constructed query, or by exploring lists of videos "similar" to one previously chosen. The work takes inspiration from random mashups of recorded music, radio transmissions and ambient sounds made by John Cage in his Imaginary Landscape and Mix series, and aims to be as hilarious, mind-opening and profound as its predecessor. Live performances of the work have so far used up to three laptops (up to 24 simultaneous channels of YouTube videos), and sometimes with live ensemble. The work exists in multiple different versions, first with names of musical instruments as more constant element of queries (YTConcerto), second (YTSurreal) with audience typing the queries, third (YTEcho) with queries constituted of onomatopoeic words, fourth (YTLoop) where short snippets of videos are played in simultaneous, slightly misaligned loops, and fifth (YTNoise), based on synonyms of word "noise".

Unfortunately, playing multiple videos simultaneously on the same page is not compliant with YouTube policies, and in early 2020 YouTube has "revoked the allocated quota" for the project, effectively disabling it. The project continues to live as a series of video captures of the original program, and as an "offline" version using a fixed database of around 4000 video-ids.

See the offline version.

Score for live performance.

Selected video captures:

Shows:

  1. Echoraeume, Saturday December 18th 2021.
  2. Audiovisual Frontiers, November 20th 2021.
  3. Oscilloscope, October 27th 2020 (YTNoise & YTLoop)
  4. Robin Meiksins' Thirty Days of Improv, November 21st 2019
  5. Ocean of Sound #3 - Andreja Andric Portrait Concert, with live ensemble (Ditte Maria Mølgaard, voice, Anna Sakham Jalving, violin, Marie Sønderskov, flute, Frederik Sakham, double-bass), Radar, Aarhus, November 14th 2019
  6. VERV - Flowchart, Conservatorio Benedetto Marcello, Venice, Italy, April 15th 2019.
  7. 1000Fryd, Aalborg, March 16th 2019.
  8. CEMI Circles 2018/19, Merrill Ellis Intermedia Theater, Denton, Texas, USA, March 2nd 2019.
  9. New Century Improv Ensemble concert, Pitman Recital Hall, Norman, Oklahoma, USA, November 30th 2018.

Flowchart:


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