BlueRail 2022

BlueRail 2022 – TV/E+ – Behind the Scenes

BlueRail is a project from Wilfredo Terrazas and Amy Cimini.

BlueRail is a two hour-long, multidisciplinary, international, site-specific, and improvised performance that moves through the halls, patio, stairs, and secret little corners of the Conrad Prebys Music Center building. Over 80 extraordinary musicians, dancers, and visual artists from UC San Diego, San Diego, and Baja California will create BlueRail’s audio-visual world. BlueRail will run at the Conrad Prebys Music Center on Sunday, October 9th, 2022, 2-4pm. BlueRail on Facebook.

Trumpet, Violin / Electronics + Audience

TV/E+ is an electro-acoustic contribution for BlueRail. Trevor Henthorn (aka “Hipster Modular“, San Diego) and Marilu Salinas (aka “M A L U“, Tijuana) will improvise Trumpet and Violin with a 3rd component – mobilized Electronics with audience-influenced ambiance.

The battery-powered electronics, portable amplification and audience communication tools are transported throughout the building via (blue) trolley, participating in the various BlueRail stops.

Interactivity

The audience provides the ambience. A field recording was recently captured of the 3-hour round trip on the MTS Blue Line from the UTC Station to San Ysidro and back, roughly between 2pm-4pm on a Sunday.

The audience brings this Sunday afternoon sound of the trolley ambience into the Conrad Prebys Music Center in, what could be perceived as, real-time. Each audience member experiences their own trolley ride by scanning the TV/E+ QR-code with their phone.

The audio and video from the 3-hour trip is played along with prominent timecode, approaching trolley stop display and trip progress. This ride visited at UC San Diego Central Campus at 1:55pm and again at 3:33pm.

The audience improvisor can choose to play the trip with time matching the 2pm-4pm reality, or from the future or from the past. They can even scrub the playback to relive the sound of their favorite trolley stop or choose from TV/E+ curated sounds including the exterior recording of the trolley arriving and departing the UC Sa Diego Central Campus station. With their phones for amplification, audience improvisors participate with the improvisation by scrubbing their own timeline and optionally adding additional train-like rail-popping effects through the TV/E+ BlueRail “popping candy” (from Zeta Espacial S.A.).

Through the layering of looped Trumpet, Violin, Electronics and Ambience, we experience a smearing and crackling of time, collapse the 3-hour trip, bring UTC closer to San Ysidro, La Jolla closer to Tijuana.

Audio / Video Platform Control

The goal of TV/E+ is to enable both skilled and unskilled improvisors to explore the nearly 3-hours of audio in a musical way. To realize this, the field recordings are presented in 3 forms:

Full Video – The full 3-hour video is presented upon scanning the QR-Code. Audience Improvisors can immediately play the video (starting at 1:47pm), scrub the playback and optionally bring the video up full-screen. This works best on iPads and iPhones.
Split Video – As scrubbing 3-hours can be awkward, the video is also presented in halves (UTC to San Ysidro and visa vera).
Video Download – Devices with slow (or no) internet may find that the “Download” link performs better. Those with laptops can download the video which provides the trolley stops as chaptered bookmarks.
Audio Only – Don’t care for the video, use the embedded audio objects.
Sonic Scrubber – The curated audio files are presented with Sonic Scrubber links enabling audience improvisors to easily jump around and repeat audio gestures.

Significance + This Trip

The 2019 BlueRail performance ran as part of SpringFest on Sunday April 7, 2019. In March 2020, a two-week shutdown turned into a long-term campus shutdown changing both travel and the traditional college experience. On November 21, 2021, the UC San Diego Blue Line light rail extension opened and expanded the San Diego Trolley system from Downtown San Diego to the UTC Transit Center, serving nine new Trolley stations. After over 3 years of change, BlueRail 2022 will occur on October 9, 2022. The recording of the 3-hour Sunday Trolley ride included a elements unique to this trip: Sunday afternoons tend to be calm.