From KAREN wiki

Syneme is an investigation of international collaborative production and performance using "high-speed electronic art research networks" including KAREN.

Syneme TeleArts

Among the work under way is the composition and performance of works across multiple sites in different countries. This has required significant work on software to carry audio over an Internet Protocol network. The aim now is to develop artistic solutions to the problems created by delay and other issues inherent in the use of high-capacity Research and Education Networks in shared interactive music performance over long distances. Signals take a certain length of time to travel between The University of Waikato and sites in a number of countries, simply because the distances involved are great and the speed of light is finite. A conventional videoconferencing unit is currently being used to provide the visual component of performance, but it is not clear that this will be the longer-term solution.

Assoc. Professor Ian Whalley of the Department of Music

Internet Protocol version 6 support in The University of Waikato's network has been extended to the faculty of Arts and Social Sciences. This is to allow collaboration within the Syneme project with a conservatory connected through the Chinese CERNET2 research and education network. This makes Syneme the university's first project outside Computer Science intentionally to make use of IPv6.

Update

A musical performance for the Beijing MUSICACOUSTIC 10 festival took place over the high-speed research network in late October, using IPv6. This involved New Zealand, Canada and China, performed to a live audience in Beijing.

The piece by Waikato University composer Associate Professor Ian Whalley was called Mittsu no Yugo. Technically, it involved linking multiple digital video channels and independent CD quality multiple digital audio channels between the three countries to allow the real-time/interactive performance. The work is a first from this distance using the new internet IPv6 format and multiple audio channels.

The composition melds aspects of sonic cultures from three points of the Pacific Rim. In Hamilton the performers (pictured at left) were Whalley (Max/MSP patches, wind synth), violin lecturer Lara Hall (Violin and Looper) and Masters graduate Hannah Gilmour (Spectral beds, rhythm and effects). David Larson (Buffulo Drum) was in Canada and Bruce Gremo (Shakuhachi) was in Beijing, where the Beijing Musicacoustic 2010 was being held.

Composer Ian Whalley notes that new composition techniques were required in the work to accommodate the the visual latency of the digital video, and provide structures that also allow for spontaneous input from performers, as the work is improvised interactively and live.