ABSTRACT
On 26 November 2022, Sally Coleman launched a semi-live hybrid performance event from The Void to promote her highly collaborative science fiction music band, Big Sand. Coleman worked with motion capture (MoCap) technology for several months, combining her performance flair with the talents of other musicians, dancers, and animators. Though her live virtual Void performance was more proof of concept, Coleman stated she believed that her experiment was, currently, the only production of its type: a live, animated, interactive musical concert using virtual production (VP) tools like MoCap, livestreamed remotely to an audience in a venue. Big Sand has some significant predecessors in the live VP space, but Coleman is right. She is among the first live performers to bring the Metaverse – an interactive virtual social space – into contact with material reality via a traditional performance venue: a concept which has been theorised for years but only recently implemented. Big Sand not only integrates liveness between ‘cyberspace’ and ‘meatspace’ for a hybrid third stage but gives audiences easier access to virtual social spaces through the familiarity of in-person gathering. Big Sand’s first concert represents a new form of live Metaverse performance art.
