After a successful presence at SXSW, immersive technology and creative studio Ristband just visited GITEX Africa, Morocco, where it presented its AI-Driven Immersive Concert. Recently, they headed to the Shanghai International Film Festival where their mixed reality concert and standalone VR experience Detachment will be showcased as a part of the official selection.
We caught up with Roman Rappak, Ristband co-founder and member of the independent band Pivots, who told us more about this platform at the crossroads of music and technology, offering innovative solutions to independent musicians but also to audiences eager to go beyond conventions and discover entirely new kinds of live entertainment.
FUTURE x MUSIC: throwback to SXSW
AGNESE – I haven’t congratulated you on SXSW yet. I know it was once again a very successful and satisfying edition for you and Ristband!
ROMAN RAPPAK – This is our third year back at South by Southwest with a FUTURE x MUSIC Event and its always an incredible experience.
The strength of the show we do, for me, is that we are constantly improving it, as you do with anything that uses software: technology is advancing, as are the skills of the developers, which improve our ability to stage a group experience. Also, since 2017, the year we presented our first “experiment”, the audience itself has become more receptive and open minded, they are more familiar with the idea of an event that uses technology, as a live, and immersive event.
You combine all these elements and you have a show that is, for all intents and purposes, better every time. It’s a show that people are really connecting with… We have done concerts for 20 people at a time to 100 people at a time. The audience wears headsets connected in a multiplayer network and through these headsets they can travel between the real world of the concert to the virtual world, where users are all there as multiplayer entities flying together!
A. – What is at the heart of your production?
R. R. – The purpose of our events is to see how a live experience changes when augmented with virtual and mixed reality: we are not suggesting this would ever replace a concert, it’s more about adding a layer of immersive technology to it.
When we first started working on this idea, a project like ours was considered niche and “arty”, like many of the early VR projects… almost a kind of hackathon! As the understanding of immersive technologies progressed and a more mainstream audience has discovered them, suddenly the idea of using immersive technologies at live events became more accepted and understood.
So, at first people who understood the kind of experience we were creating were those who already belonged to tech/gaming/XR community. They took part in our events, but were looking at them as an immersive experience, rather than a musical one.
R. R. – In a sense, our process aims to find its place in the history of live music that has always been mediated by incredible technological evolutions.
The arrival of the first amplification systems suddenly changed the idea of what a concert could be- no longer “just” an orchestra playing acoustically or a person playing a guitar in a room. It could also be argued that the saxophone itself was a technology that allowed the volume to be turned up, thus increasing the number of people able to listen to that music.
Then there were the lighting systems, the light shows, the LED walls, all constantly improving and becoming more and more advanced.
And now we’re in a new phase again, made up of 3D game engines and virtual worlds that are part of everyday life and everyday entertainment. I’m thinking of Coachella this year, where all the screens and all the visuals were running in real-time with real-time engines, making the experience more similar to a video game running in a virtual space.
Music and technology: a two-way connection
A. – We clearly see how technology is affecting the way music is enjoyed today. But I wonder, can music in turn influence the direction that technology takes?
R. R. – For me, as a musician, it feels like that’s the pattern that keeps repeating: music informs technology and technology informs music. It is a natural relationship which leads to new genres, and new modes of expression.
Just look at the historical context of the music industry. People – especially older people who worked in labels in the ’80s or ’90s – often see the world of “technology” as a negative thing, because that’s what brought us streaming, which probably ruined their bank balance. (laughs) Trent Reznor of Nine Inch Nails talks about this in a wonderful recent interview where he reflects on the role of platforms like Spotify.
But the contradictory thing for me is that if you look at the history of music over the last 150 years, you can see that this has always been part of the evolution of music.
There has always been a continuous technological advancement to accompany music’s evolution, ever since technology allowed us to record music, then the publishing systems, which allowed users to buy that same recorded music, and the artists and labels to generate an income from those recordings.
I think about the glory days when musicians became millionaires by selling a piece of plastic over and over again. I think about the invention of the electric guitar that gave us rock and roll, or that of the drum machine and synthesizer, which gave us electronic music, rave culture, hip hop, techno house. I think about the innovation brought to us by music videos.
Prior to channels like MTV, promotional videos existed, but they were of marginal significance. There was no channel where people could really enjoy them, no distribution pipelines. Then, all of a sudden, MTV came along, and certain artists, like the grunge artists or the “second British Invasion” like Boy George, Spandau Ballet, discovered that the music video and its new distribution channels were an incredibly powerful tool, both for expression and to generate awareness.
All the New Romantic bands that had an extraordinary visual style fit incredibly well into this new context.
Then, there was the Internet, the Myspace era, SoundCloud… In this sense the history of music is the history of its technological innovations.
R. R. – If technology has influenced the directions music took, the reverse is certainly also true: music always informs technology. Those musicians who started using synthesisers, those very strange, futuristic devices, used them to try and present a snapshot of what the future might be. That’s the point of post-punk and of electronic music, they started out as almost Futurist movements.
The point of what we are doing at Ristband and with our band Pivots is to say that all this technology, instead of being the last nail in the coffin of the good old days of music, will actually open up new directions, new ways of expressing things.
I believe we are about to enter a new phase- let’s call it the virtual world or XR phase.
Coupled with the continued evolution of headsets, better graphics, longer-lasting batteries, and more, it is logical to think that maybe in three or four years, even more advanced tools will come out and totally reduce the form factor.
All this makes me think that at some point there will be a convergence of artists, technology and music that will bring about a new era.
The evolution of audiences and distribution
A. – Earlier, you mentioned a change in the audience’s response to your events. How was the atmosphere you perceived during SXSW?
R. R. – In the United States, the audience is always great. However, I noticed some interesting things this year.
The first is that the range of people attending events like ours is definitely changing. It is no longer just people in the XR space- there were a lot of gamers, people into electronic music, people who listen to live bands, people from labels even.
Until recently the only people from the labels who usually came would be, for instance, the one person who was in charge of innovation at Sony, or the one person who was in charge of Web3 at Warner. Now it’s a much broader range of artists and industry professionals. It’s no longer seen as futurism: immersive/technology productions are a much more mainstream part of everyday life.
Another thing we realised- and that relates to XR as a movement and a genre- is that the way we show XR productions at events like this is partly based on the model of video game trade shows and partly based on the independent films.
A. – You have experienced these approaches firsthand, I imagine, since you also presented a stand-alone piece at SXSW for the first time. I’m talking about Detachment.
R. R. – Something we had never done before! An interesting experience that I admit I had very strong doubts about at first.
Over the years I have fallen in love with not only what this medium is, but will become.
So, in the past, walking through the booths, during a festival like SXSW, and seeing studios presenting their productions to people sitting there with a headset on their head, while other people walked by taking pictures… Well, to me it looked boring and in some respects even a little embarrassing.
I was reflecting on this in a recent interview. As with cinema in the early days, today it is not a question of whether immersive technology is powerful- we already know that it is. Rather, we are struggling to find a context for it, what the film system has been for cinema.
A. – Could there be similar systems?
R. R. – I honestly don’t think it’s going to be a re-creation of the same model that worked for cinema, because the studio system took decades to be established, and then we had to wait for the Kurosawas, the Kubricks, the Hitchcocks. So, it will be something new… and maybe something more hybridised.
We moved from this, too: the creation of a hybrid context. People would line up to get into the immersive experience together, then they would sit down, put on their headsets, watch the tutorial to learn how to move through this virtual space, and visit it while music was playing. We spent ages and ages making this space as incredible as possible only to realise, as we observed our users going through the experience, that the real smile comes when they come back to reality and see themselves there.
Someone once said that the effectiveness and power of a VR experience is usually recognized the moment you take off the headset and come back to reality. I think that’s absolutely true. Virtual worlds are not there to replace reality. Rather, it should be there to challenge the gap between real and virtual, showing how it is becoming more opaque every day.
Exploring the virtual and the real with Detachment
“Detachment” is a cinematic and interactive journey through our shifting sense of reality, challenging our sense of the here and now, and blending the boundary between a music video and video game with a unique movement mechanic that rewards the curious, and AI driven randomisation. “Detachment” is told from the future, looking back at how technology has impacted our experience of reality and the journey of humankind.Soundtracked by UK band Pivots and narrated by actor Erik Todd Dellums, “Detachment” explores the way our sense of reality is in constant flux.”
(SXSW – XR Experience Competition)
A. – What is Detachment about?
R. R. – Detachment is, in some ways, a kind of mini-protest. It explores the idea of a VR experience that uses the generic tropes you find in current VR experiences: flying through a tunnel, gamification, etc… and is meant to be a comment on issues that immersive productions face- the relationship between the human mind and reality. It’s an experience where on the one hand the developer has run out of time and so things start to break, and on the other the voice actor hasn’t learned the lines particularly well and isn’t getting paid enough.
The central point of the experience is therefore meant to be ironic and critical of our attitude toward VR: we thought everything was possible in 2019 or 2020. Now, not even 5 years later, it seems we are already entering the phase of rules: a good VR experience is made this way, it has to be distributed that way, etc.
So Detachment was me reflecting on this… but also an experiment.
Honestly, though, one of the things I enjoyed the most was that I finally got a chance to engage with the audience. I usually never get to meet people when we do events because I’m always working: I’m on a stage, performing music, checking 20 headsets in real time, watching the audience to make sure everyone is okay. It’s one show after another and then by 11 pm I’ve done 15 shows and talked to virtually no one.
The good thing about this work was that for four days I was there, in that booth, showing Detachment to those who came in. I met some incredible people… people who organize film festivals in Shanghai, people who set up installation galleries in Montreal, old friends I hadn’t seen in ages… It was a fantastic experience.
A. – Was there anything that surprised you about the way people approached this work?
R. R. – One thing that surprised me was the conversations we had with users. We quickly realised that after experiencing “Detachment” people wanted to discuss it, to tell us about their experience… like when a child wakes up from a dream and has to tell you about it.
The piece is nonlinear, so it is never the same experience: some people try certain paths, others try different ones, and all of them experience something that is unique and personal.
If you and I sit down to watch a movie, every single frame we see will be the same. However, if I am playing Grand Theft Auto or Candy Crush, what I will experience will be different from what you experience.
Video games, from this point of view, are the perfect metaphor to understand how entertainment is changing today and how human beings have changed, too. I think there is a deep desire for experiences where you are in control, where what you live is unique and just yours, where you feel a sense of agency.
A. – In some ways it’s merely an illusion, but as a user you feel somehow co-author of the immersive experience, as if you yourself were bringing it to life in that moment.
R. R. – I think this is also a beautiful thing about game design: as an artform, it is in many ways the most humble creative language. Traditional mediums cast the artist as someone with an almost divine power, able to direct the user in the direction they want, physically and emotionally. Almost as though they are gods creating the artwork, and we, as the audience are “sheep”, passively being led through their ideas
But things are different for video game designers. Even just by doing play tests they can realise that what an aspect of their game thought no one cared about is actually at the core of the work. They have to let their creation be shaped by its audience which is a humbling experience.
A closer look at Ristband
A. – What makes Ristband different from other platforms, in your opinion?
R. R. – I am a musician and have a limited background in coding and game design, even if I only have enough knowledge to process the early stages of a production, I can engage with the technical team fairly articulately about what we are building.
However, thinking about what characterises Ristband versus other similar platforms, the first distinction I would make is that we come from the world of music, and 99% of the companies I talk to – amazing talented studios that have created beautiful work- come very much from the tech or the art installation world.
There are incredible tools that are creating this new movement in music I mentioned earlier. And in many ways Ristband is their crash test dummy: I need the technology to be simple enough that it doesn’t distract us from the music. I want it to augment a concert, rather than replace it.
That’s precisely why it’s even more frustrating to me when I realise that the knee-jerk reaction, especially from music industry people and labels is an assumption that we’re trying to replace live events or disrupt the concert experience. We’re not. In the end what we do is a normal concert with a normal band. We just allow people to experience it as a journey, almost like a music video.
Speaking of which, so many people wondered, in the early days of MTV, if videos were overshadowing the music, distracting people from the songs. But that never happened. On the contrary, people fell even more in love with the music, because these images offered a visual medium that really ingrained that song into their heads. And I think the same is happening today with these new technologies and experiences.
Choosing the right artists: the indie music scene
A. – What are the cautions to have when approaching the music scene with a platform like yours?
R. R. – With platforms like Ristband the most important thing is to avoid, if possible, working with overly famous artists and instead turning to indie music and lesser known bands.
We have been approached by many artists and many major labels, and the thing that has always discouraged me is that these are not really people who are going to experiment to find a new audience. With an audience of millions, why would they need to do that?
There is also an additional disadvantage to working with established, successful artists early on in the platform’s development: if an artist is already established, won awards and released loads of records, then they tend to be more risk averse. It’s understandable, in that they often will be working with labels, or teams who don’t want to gamble on an approach that is, to them, “experimental”. Emerging artists, on the other hand, have nothing to lose, and are also looking at exciting ways to stand out and build a fanbase.
That’s why an independent artist may be willing to take more risks to broaden their audience.
Also, an indie band is used to getting into a van carrying cheap equipment to reach a venue with not very good speakers. If they still do a fantastic concert despite the small budget and the small audience, it means that by the time they are on a bigger stage, they will have already made all the mistakes they can and then it will be possible to actually have a big LED wall and use certain technologies and go on tour in a bus instead of a van. It’s something worth considering.
Something similar happens in the indie game market, actually: people are creating very simple eight-bit retro games that focus on gameplay. They sell incredibly well, and the best part is that you pay two developers and it’s done.
A recent documentary I saw on YouTube about this pointed out that we might be at the end of AAA video games, because they are terribly expensive to make. They need so many billions that you end up in the same trap as Hollywood’s Marvel: if the cost of production is so high, then it has to make an unsustainable amount of money and it has to have a lot of investors. And if it has to make that much money with so many investors, no one is going to take risks with the story or the narrative.
It’s a trap that we in the immersive industry will also have to learn to deal with: we’re still in the early stages, but people who are willing to take risks, whether they’re artists or technologists, are absolutely critical.
On the power of sound
R. R. – I have a background as a sound designer and it’s clear to me how audio always makes a huge difference. In VR as in cinema. Anyone who works in film as a sound designer will explain that despite sound being one of the most important aspects of cinema, it is often the most neglected.
There is a great sound designer and editor, Walter Murch, who wrote a book called In the Blink of an Eye. There he talks about how most of the information in a film comes from the images and a smaller part comes from the audio. This implies that studios focus very much on the visuals but sometimes neglect the sound aspect a little bit.
However, what happens with the audio is absolutely critical because, unlike the visuals that happen in front of us, the audio speaks directly to our subconscious. It allows you, as an artist, to manipulate your audiences and to influence their reactions without them even realising it. In short, it’s a very powerful thing.
That’s why at Ristband we always pay so much attention to the sound aspect of our work.
For Detachment, for example, we worked with Sphere of Sound, a spatial audio company, and they are absolutely amazing. They allowed us to play with sound in a way that makes little sense in cinema, but makes a huge difference in an immersive work like ours, where we are telling a story in an interactive 3d space.
Understanding a medium through understanding its users
A. – What do you dream for Ristband and the future of your productions?
R. R. – We see this project as a window to a future of different things, which is why we chose not only to use AR or VR, but to build a gaming platform with Unreal Engine after receiving a grant from Epic Games.
Of course, I doubt there are people out there who can really tell you what this future we’re imagining will look like. In my opinion, the most logical thing is to put all these tools we have together, bring them into a big mix and most importantly, collaborate with lots of different skill sets and individuals.
Of all these things, I think this is the most important point: you cannot understand a medium and its impact on human beings unless you actually involve human beings in its development.
From this point of view, we have a big advantage at Ristband: in one night at SXSW more than 1,000 people took part in our event… people who were experiencing it in different way, people we were able to talk to, people we interviewed, whose ideas are inspiring us for the future of our company.
I think of Ristband as a centre of experimentation and in some senses as an independent research laboratory. In a sense that is the dream, and a dream that is coming to life in front of us.
The other thing I want is to take these productions on tour, visit a music festival with a mysterious tent that people access for 10 minutes to experience something new and then leave without fully understanding what they saw.
This is something I would really like to do. After all, in a world of great musicians, it doesn’t matter the medium you choose- if it’s a spatial audio installation or a VR experience or a mobile game. If the core of your project is exciting and the message is interesting enough, then music can really work anywhere.
Ristband “creates cutting edge games and immersive experiences using proprietary technology”. Visit their website to find out more about this fantastic platform at the crossroads of social media, cinema and gaming, and join their newsletter to stay updated on events they will be involved in in the future.
Also, take a look at the work by Sphere of Sound and discover how they are “elevating experiences in VR and art installations” through the use of sound.
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