SXSWORLD

 A group of creatives-in-residence also attended the hackathon, helping teams to generate ideas. Digital artist Andrew Jones, musician and activist Kiran Gandhi (also known as Madame Gandhi), music hacker Chris Hughes (Network of One), film producer Tara Ansley, DJ Evan Bartholomew, and the aforementioned Block, were all members of this diverse collective.  "I really enjoyed the spirit that the hack- athon had, bringing in some actual artists in the industry and being able to listen to their chal- lenges," said Harper of their participation.  Madame Gandhi—who is, among many other titles, M.I.A.'s drummer—worked with a team of nine hackers to create "EntertainAR," an AR app connected to Gandhi's "The Future is Female" t-shirts. The app allows her fans to view a range of exclusive material, including 360-degree videos, by scanning the words on the t-shirt with their smartphones. The product serves two complementary purposes: to connect Gandhi's merchandise with her online presence while giving fans access to exclusive content. "They really came to know my brand very well," Gandhi said of the EntertainAR team.  Arpit Gupta, who organized the country's largest VR hackathon, "Reality Virtually," with MIT, served as a mentor and product manager for the team, which included a range of developers, designers and VR experts. "It had a great mix of people," he said.  They built EntertainAR with the VR tools Vuforia and Unity, Gupta says. It uses "mark- er-based technology," which trains the app to recognize the pattern on the t-shirt, and then trigger an augmented reality experience. The app also has the potential to scan other merchandise such as CDs and vinyl records.  The day after the hackathon, music and tech worlds collided in real time, when the EntertainAR team tested the app at Madame Gandhi's SXSW showcase. There, they worked as Gandhi's merch team, selling merch while demoing the product and collecting fans' information. "None of us had ever been behind a merchandise table," said Gupta, "So having that experience and getting to talk to real fans in that setting was incredible."  Several members of the group have stayed in contact, Gupta says. They plan to work with freelance developers to add a couple of new fea- tures, and hope to commercialize the app in the near future. There's a lot of potential for AR/VR innovations in the realm of live performance, he thinks.  If the work of SXSW's hackathon teams is anything to go by, this potential may be realized soon. T he worlds of immersive technology and music converged in a big way at SXSW 2017's panels, screenings and perfor- mances. Nowhere was this clearer than at the official SXSW Hackathon. Formerly branded as the SXSW Music Hackathon, this year the event expanded to include VR/AR and film categories. Many teams, including several winning ones, created apps that blended all three, using VR and AR technology to enhance the experiences of both musicians and fans.  The winners of the music category, Ctrl^3 (pronounced control cubed), connected Merge VR's new "Holo Cube" with the live performance and recording software Ableton Live to build an interactive music creation platform for producers. Using the Holo Cube, Ctrl^3 allows producers to control Ableton's synthesizers and audio filters, along with light effects in up to five dimensions. The goal, the team says, is to "push Ableton users to a new level of musical creativity."  Following the hackathon, Ctrl^3's creators Tom Brückner, from Germany, and Paul Wehner, who is based in California, met up in Los Angeles to discuss plans for a beta version of the product. They hope to test it with active producers and musicians including David Block (The Human Experience), who served as a creative-in-resi- dence at the hackathon.  Another team, "Cubestrument" used the Holo Cube to create a virtual reality musical instru- ment, with several different, customizable "audio profiles."  In the VR/AR category, the winning team, Space+Time Studio, built a platform that will help bring AR technology into the realm of live performance. "It's a prototyping tool for mixed reality performance designers," describes Max Harper, one half of the Boston-based team. "The stage of the future," he says, will feature a range of holographic designs, including dance troupes and other effects that can be controlled by the performer.  Space+Time Studio will allow these future designers and artists to plan out a performance, and see what it will look like, using VR a model of the real performance space. It will also allow performers to integrate IoT (Internet of Things) technology to control lighting and other physical elements of the stage design.  Harper and his teammate, Amedeo Mapelli, created the platform using Mapelli's own software called "Simmetri," which is designed for interac- tive art builders and virtual reality storytellers. The two had met briefly before the hackathon, when Harper used Simmetri for a music video, but they cemented their working dynamic at SXSW. "It is definitely a kind of made at SouthBy rela- tionship," says Harper. The two have continued to collaborate on projects back home in Boston. SXSW Hackathon, photo by Randy & Jackie Smith INNOVATION RULES AT SXSW Hackathon By corinna BurforD

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