One of the most thrilling aspects of technology is its ability to recreate familiar concepts in unexpected ways. Classical music performances can be visually or auditorily enhanced to give a new form to music that has existed for centuries.
On the 20th September, the world’s largest museum and one of the most recognisable symbols of Paris offered a multi-sensory symphonic experience using the power of artificial intelligence and big data. Launched by a professional services company Accenture, the Simphonologie project transformed the Louvre art gallery into a 21st century pageant of art and technology to demonstrate what a powerful combination they can be.
Teaming up with creative technologist and musician Hannah Davis, as well as an interactive design company Rare Volume and the composer Mathieu Lamboley, Accenture produced a fascinating new project that combined data, tech and art. The key idea behind Simphonologie is to use big data and smart algorithms to capture the issues currently disrupting the business world and recreate these through music.
By means of an algorithmic analysis of a mass of articles related to popular business topics such as the Internet of Things and cyber security, the project identified emotionally coloured words that were later classified as musical elements. With the help of Davis and Lamboley, these elements were translated into musical patterns to reflect the spirit around trending business and technology. As suggested in the press release, Symphonologie thus covers three movements:
- Voices of Business reflects the state of business in our digital world, a landscape of new models and fluid expectations.
- Rise of Technology brings to life the sense of upheaval and disruption driven by new digital technologies.
- New Digital World, the final movement, concludes the symphony with the sense of a promising landscape propelled by the latest technology and business thinking.
Presenting these matter-of-fact notions in a new light, Simphonology is more than just a powerful music performance. It is a complete audio-visual experience that offers a new look on all the subtle ways our lives are connected with technology.
“It’s taking something completely classic like a piece of composed music, but it’s generating it from a computer,” notes Davis in a Silicon Republic interview.
Symphonologie thus blends the past with present, merging the two completely different worlds into an experience that gives a new meaning to art in the digital revolution.
Bojana Dobran
Content Consultant
