[0140] (42 lines) Lippard.Multics 03/12/87  0923.0 mst Thu misc
Subject:  The Show Must Go On
Date:  Thursday, 12 March 1987 06:07 mst
From:  Paul Dickson <Dickson>
To:  {mbx >udd>m>Lippard>misc>misc}

From RISKS-FORUM Digest  Wednesday, 11 March 1987  Volume 4 : Issue 62


Date: 11 Mar 1987 1113-PST (Wednesday)
From: Glenn Trewitt <trewitt@amadeus.stanford.edu>
Subject: Computers in the arts -- The Show Must Go On.

One of the most painful memories that I have:

Last fall, I attended a Pilobolus modern dance performance at Berlekey.
Their last segment was a performance of "Carmina Burana", accompanied by a
compact disk.  This is a long piece, perhaps 20 minutes.  About two-thirds
of the way through, when the performers were dancing "blind" (they had
various things on their heads), the disk skipped to a different section.
Many people didn't notice this, but I had seen the performance before and
listened to the music at home.  The performers were REAL good -- they
recovered perfectly and the show went on.

For about 2 minutes more, that is.  At that point, the disk went nuts and
started playing random 10-second bits of music.  Generally, just enough for
the performers to start to recover.  This went on for about a minute before
they gave up and turned off the "music".  But it seemed like an eternity,
with the poor dancers up there on stage, just thrashing.

I see the risks here as different from other risks associated with any other
pre-recorded music, because almost all other failures are not so
catastrophic.  With a record, for example, you can just nudge the needle and
continue.  On the flip side, it occurred to me that it was quite possible
that someone in the audience had, with them, the technology to fix the
problem.  Namely, a portable CD player, perhaps with the same CD.  An
amusing thought.
                                - Glenn Trewitt

    [Although off the subject of RISKS, this is of course a common
    failure mode of CDs -- not just a skip and a jump, but wildly
    erratic behavior.  Similar things happen in digital computer control
    systems (as opposed to analog) -- slight errors may translate into
    wildly erratic behavior, e.g., a wild control transfer...  PGN]
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