The PacJap musical ensemble, born from a Franco-Japanese exchange project initiated by the AMI association, had already adopted the form of a laptop orchestra when I joined in 2001. The unique aspect of this orchestra was that all participants shared the same MIDI data, each interpreting it according to their own taste and largely using their own programs or patches created with MaxMSP. This principle had the dual advantage of addressing the near impossibility of communicating verbally, since we didn't have a common language, and of creating a musical experience that was always synchronized and in some way coherent despite aesthetic and cultural differences.

For each musical piece, one member of the group would send MIDI data from an instrument, an interface, or software on their computer. The other members of the group, connected via a local network, would receive and “interpret” it. The interpretation here lay in choosing which part of the data to use, its potential transformation (transposition or otherwise), and its assignment to the sounds. Concerts : ISEA, Nagoya, Japan in 2002 and at the MIMI Festival in Marseille in 2003.

Members :

Itoken

Jérôme Joy

Takashi Kojima

Kyoko

Peter Sinclair

Colette Tron

Suguru Yamaguchi

Tadahiko Yokogawa

Vj and visual Documentation Renaud Vercey