The Imaginary Voyage was an unfinished web opera based on the Voyage from Paris to Paris by Sea in Alfred Jarry's posthumously published novel The Exploits and Opinions of Doctor Faustroll, pataphysician. It was a collaboration with Lee Scott, who designed and programmed the interactive web installations, and The Opera Group (now called Mahogany Opera). In the end, only four of Jarry's imaginary islands were completed. 'The Soundhouse' was also added. The active links below will play video captures of the interactive website.
Amorphous Isle |
Isle of Cack |
Land of Lace |
Ringing Isle |
The Soundhouse |
| "The Island is like soft coral, amoeboid
and protoplasmic: its trees closely resemble the gesture of snails making
horns at us." Alfred Jarry, Exploits and Opinions of Doctor Faustroll, Pataphysician |
"...this dead body is not only an island
but a man: he is pleased to call himself Baron Hildebrand of the Squitty
Sea." Alfred Jarry, Exploits and Opinions of Doctor Faustroll, Pataphysician |
"Suddenly a purer light than this emerged
from the shadows, but in no way similar to the brutal genesis of the world." Alfred Jarry, Exploits and Opinions of Doctor Faustroll, Pataphysician |
"He then threw us on the deck whole handfuls
of frozen words, which seemed to us like your rough sugar plums, of many
colours..." François Rabelais, Pantagruel IV.LVI. |
"We have also sound houses, where we practise
and demonstrate all sounds, and their generation." Francis Bacon, The New Atlantis. |
| Interactive. Guided by a pataphysical compass. Slow interactions work best. |
Interactive. Probably the clearest example of the Syzygy Surfer in action. |
Massively combinatorial, but not interactive.
Different every time you visit. |
Interactive. Release the coloured 'sugar plums' (snowballs) of frozen words. |
Interactive. Follow the instructions to operate the machine. |
Texts generated by Fania Raczinski Ensemble Director: Andrew Hugill Music recorded and mixed by Lee Scott at Kings College London and De Montfort University Produced by Lee Scott, Andrew Hugill, Frederic Wake-Walker and The Opera
Group |
Music/Video: Creative Commons samples, Andrew
Hugill, Lee Scott |
Words: Alfred Jarry Ensemble Condutor: Christian Prior Music recorded and mixed by Lee Scott at Kings College London and De Montfort University Produced by Lee Scott, Andrew Hugill, Frederic Wake-Walker and The Opera Group |
Words: Andrew Hugill Music recorded at De Montfort University by Andrew Hugill and mixed by Lee Scott. |
Words and Music: Creative Commons samples |
The Imaginary Voyage is an investigation into a new type of opera that emerges from the digital world (Hugill & Scott 2013, 253). The research is described in Hugill, A. and Scott, L. (2013) 'The Imaginary Voyage', Digital Creativity 24/3, pp. 253-257.
The user is cast in the role of voyager, travelling from island to island across the internet (or Squitty Sea). Each island has its own character and interactivity. The story is primarily modelled on the voyage of Doctor Faustroll in Alfred Jarry's posthumously published novel Exploits and Opinions of Doctor Faustroll, Pataphysician (1911), and similar descriptions by Iambulus, Rabelais, Cyrano de Bergerac, Bacon, Swift, Borges and Perec.
The Imaginary Voyage is underpinned by a novel technology: the Syzygy Surfer This was first described by Andrew Hugill and Jim Hendler (Hendler, J. and Hugill, A. (2011) 'The Syzygy Surfer: Creative Technology for the World Wide Web', Proceedings of the ACM WebSci'11, Koblenz, Germany, 1-3). This was subsequently developed by a team led by Hugill and Hongji Yang, with PhD students Lee Scott and Fania Raczinski.
The Imaginary Voyage was conceived by Andrew Hugill and created during 2012/2013 by Hugill, Lee Scott and Freddie Wake-Walker with The Opera Group. The music for Amorphous Isle, Land of Lace and Ringing Isle is all composed by Hugill. Isle of Cack uses a mixture of original music by Hugill and Scott with samples. The Soundhouse comprises entirely samples. All production, web programming and visual design is by Lee Scott, except for Land of Lace whose animations are by Jo Lawrence.
The work was first shown at the Digital Opera Research Group symposium on March 1st, 2013 which led to publication of a manifesto for digital opera (Hugill, A et al. (2013) 'Digital Opera: A Manifesto', Opera Compass. Available at http://operacompass.co.uk/pages/Articles/22? (accessed 29.10.13).
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