my role

Project Video

About aria lumina

Through our field research, we uncovered orchestral music’s complexity, perceived elitism, and lack of exposure deter wider appreciation. It’s seen as inaccessible without musical education, limiting its reach and enjoyment among the general public.

After 10 weeks of ideating, testing, prototyping, and co-developing with orchestral musicians, Aria Lumina was designed to broaden the appeal of orchestral music – transforming it into a multi-sensory experience. We do this by converting musicians’ sounds into visual projections around them, adding a new dimension to visually understand the symphony, and making the complexity of classical music visually accessible and engaging for wider audiences.

The origins

-> link to the project brief

Discovering the difference between performing and performance arts was key. Starting from scratch, we explored diverse arts, including Ice Theater, Water Puppetry, and Rhythm and Shadow Puppetry, to understand the wide range of artistic expressions beyond traditional boundaries. This research established our project’s broad foundation and a general understanding of “performance art”.

We then scoped our search for performers, reaching out within and beyond our networks. This took time as we met, called, and interviewed many, aiming to understand various performance contexts and audience perspectives. This search finally connected us with Srijan Mookerjee and Mark Sim, orchestral musicians from Raffles Music College.

Orchestra in the modern Singapore context

Mark and Srijan from Raffles Music College revealed several challenges during our discussion. They observed that despite incorporating diverse musical themes from gaming and movies to evoke nostalgia, there’s a significant gap in audience’s understanding of classical music. This disconnect stems from varying levels of prior exposure to the genre and differences in how audiences engage with the performances. They also identified the difficulty of effectively communicating the depth and technical aspects of classical compositions to those unfamiliar with them. These issues highlight the complexities of appealing to a broad audience while maintaining the integrity of the art form.

Orchestral music often used to carry an aura of elitism, creating barriers for new listeners. But we’re trying to change that narrative. We’re trying to open doors, inspiring new audiences to join the conversation.

Mark Sim, instructor at the Raffles Music College

He isn’t saying that for show either. To date, Srijan and Mark have tried various methods to expose everyday folk to classical and orchestral music – from playing at void decks to even putting on movie screenings where they provide a live orchestral performance, giving audiences a taste of the classics with a side of popcorn. The moment we heard of this, we were invested and curious. What did Mark mean by …. elitism in classical music?

Classical music… and elitism

The sense of exclusivity in classical music is not just about the atmosphere at concerts or the price of tickets; it’s also woven into the very culture of the music. Newcomers might feel they need to understand complex musical terms, recognize composers and their works, or even dress a certain way to attend performances. Online forums are rife with tales of people feeling out of place due to these unwritten rules. This exclusivity is not just a perception but an experienced reality for many who feel they’re on the outside looking in, which only reinforces the elitist image of classical music. This perception creates a divide between the initiated and the curious, hindering broader appreciation and engagement.

“…To an extent it feels elitist – you need to know certain things before you can start appreciating it…“

A general public perception of classical and orchestral music as Srijan puts it.

Did something click when you read that? It seems tht the real problem isn’t that classical music is elitist; it’s that people often don’t know enough to enjoy it. They’re missing key information. And what do we do best as designers? We simplify complex ideas, making them accessible and understandable for everyone. So thats exactly what we did.

Making Classical Music accessible

We began by identifying potential knowledge gaps and issues audiences face at classical concerts, using a sample of around 40 classmates as our starting point. After gathering and analyzing this data over a week, we pinpointed several key areas. Knowledge in music theory, composition, and composers’ backgrounds emerged as vital information that could make classical music more accessible and less intimidating for newcomers stepping into this world.

A surprising insight from our research was that not all concertgoers attend classical music performances purely for the performance. Many in our sample group indicated they were there because they accompanied family or friends, or it was part of a group’s planned activities. This suggests that, unlike movies, which can captivate anyone who drops in, classical music concerts currently may not offer the same level of universal appeal.

To understand this further, we joined Srijan and Mark for their rehearsals. Kai Xing and I, with our limited knowledge, found this exposure incredibly enlightening. Initially, the music felt like a maze; we were lost, unable to follow its direction or make sense of its structure. However, by the third and fourth playthroughs, our ears began to tune into the nuances.

We started recognizing a recurring melody—a motif—that was cleverly passed from one musician to another. This motif, a fundamental concept we were just beginning to grasp, acted as a guide, helping us navigate and appreciate the complexity and beauty of the music. It was a pivotal moment, illustrating how motifs serve as building blocks in classical compositions, creating thematic unity and depth. That’s where we came into a stark realisation.

If a first time listener knew what motif to look out for in different peices, then he would automatically start appreciating the perfomance.

And therin lay the problem. In order to know the motif, you need to have listened to the peice multiple times.
How then, can we nudge a first time audience to notice the motif?

Visualising the Motif

Drawing inspiration from film and set design, we explored creative strategies to direct audience attention during live performances. In films, directors manipulate composition or camera angles to highlight specific elements, guiding the viewer’s focus. However, this technique doesn’t directly translate to live settings. We aimed to find innovative ways to mimic this effect in real life, enhancing the concert experience by emphasizing key moments or musicians without the benefit of cinematic tools.

The ideas included a ‘light wall’ that utilized theatrical fog to visually delineate the performance space, and chairs that vibrated in sync with the music’s motifs, allowing the audience to ‘feel’ the music physically. If we went fully digital, we could go with a mobile application that provided real-time visual cues about which motifs were being played.

We even came up with whacky ideas with visual cues, like illuminating instruments and performers at key moments, to direct the audience’s attention to the narrative of the music. These initiatives were aimed at deepening the concert experience, making the subtleties of classical performances more tangible and engaging for all attendees.

The prototypes and tests

Given the short timeframe of this project, we chose one of the ideas to work on – that being musical spotlights that spotlight whichever musician is playing the motif at a certain time. After making a quick taped together prototype, we animated some sound – driven visuals using aftereffects and projected it from the bottom of the setup. The initial idea was to project it from the top, but for the purposes of the protoype this made sense.

The idea was to use these spotlights to drive focus to certain musicians at different sections of a piece – akin to a director using close-ups in a film. The same way where a film would fall apart if it only had close-ups, a performance would fall apart if these spotlights were flashing around all the time. The long term idea is to allow the conductor to control these lights using his baton, so that he can effectively bring the focus of the audience around.

Right before the project was due, we managed to run one final round of testing with a few musicians from a string quartet in NUS YST. The initial response was quite positive as they found the idea quite promising and (more importantly) we were able to first and foremost, test that the projections and lights do not affect the musicians while they were performing. The weeks we spent testing out different projections angles so that the reflections don’t interfere with the scoresheet paid off.

The conclusion

Overall, the project was hella fun. We managed to do proper user research, analyze the problem, delve into electronics and design an actual working product. I wouldn’t call it perfect, however. We ran out of time to implement a module for the conductor’s baton to control these lighting effects, and therein didn’t have time to test the final impact of this on actual first-time audiences.

To be honest though, the fact that we were able to get this far in the design and development process in 8 weeks is a milestone by itself! I had a heck of a time understanding users, developing the sensors and making the visuals – and it wouldn’t have been possible without Kai Xing having my back with the insane cadding and fabrication of the device. 10/10 will sign up again!