About project

Background

Twenty odd years ago, ÅMI started the search for a technological system they could use to provide remote music education for students living in the archipelago. In order to provide music education to the children on the outer islands, teachers from ÅMI would spend several hours on the ferries to arrive for a one-hour lesson. It would take an entire day for a single lesson. ÅMI wanted to find a better way.

For the island communities in the Stockholm and Åland regions access to music education and culture events is limited. It is time-consuming and expensive to bring the services there, alternately for the island residents to travel to them on the mainland. Riksteatern was also interested in adopting new ways to provide performing arts to these hard-to-reach communities. Teaming up with SMI and Riksteatern, ÅMI started developing a system to provide remote services to island communities.

In order to be functional for this purpose, it had to be a low-latency system (< 2 msec). Several systems which claim to be low-latency were tested and discarded such as LOLA, MTVP and media platforms provided by Google, Microsoft, Zoom etc. These solutions use compressed signals and run on the IP level through multiple servers and networks, which makes it impossible to predict or control the system latency between venues. Since the latency cannot be confirmed beforehand nor guaranteed at the time of delivery, then they do not fulfill the requirement of truly low-latency systems. Therefore, the ACROSS partners started to engineer a true low-latency system that would meet the demands required.

After attending the Nordic project Theater & New Technology (TNT) in 2015, the partners along with other schools and theaters formed the Remote North community, a community of organizations interested in developing and expanding a low-latency system and the content delivered using it.

Early system & first content

Music

Remote music lessons conducted between SMI and ÅMI. Here are a couple of short videos describing the experience of teaching music via remote using the low-latency technology.

Theater

Tre Rum (Three Rooms) is a Riksteatern production in conjunction with the Remote North community. A clever play takes place across three stages in three countries, Norway, Sweden and Finland, in real-time using the low-latency system developed by the community. Click the image below to see an explanatory video in Swedish about the production. English subtitles are provided.

Project outline

The project has three outputs: youth music education, continuing education, and performing arts. A work package (WP) was created for each output and is described below.

WP1 Youth Music Education

• Objective: Youth on the islands will receive on-site music education for the first time, thus fulfilling an overwhelming need and making the islands a more attractive place to live.
• Output: SMI and ÅMI will employ the low-latency bidirectional network developed by the Remote North community to conduct remote music education for the youth in the Stockholm and Åland archipelago.

WP2 Continuing Education

• Objective: Professional musicians and teachers will gain the opportunity to collaborate, and receive additional training, thus choosing to remain on/move to the island communities.
• Output: Continuing education courses for professional musicians and teachers on the islands will be provided by SMI and ÅMI. Participants will be able to improve skills on their instrument and interact with one another in joint digital workshops and seminars.

WP3 Performing Arts

• Objective: Provide live cultural events and workshops to islanders that previously had not been available.
• Output: Inter-island and island-urban cultural events with joint audiences and actors on the islands and in the urban centers will be provided by Riksteatern and NIPÅ. These events will include performing arts productions, music performances and interactive workshops.

Partner roles