During the US Open, James Murphy, the former frontman of electronic dance-punk band LCD Soundsystem, teamed up with IBM for a special ‘US Open Sessions’ music/data project.
The initiative took IBM data from the tennis tournament and transformed this into electro tunes.
This innovative approach to Open orchestration, saw the musician work with developer Patrick Gunderson of digital production company Tool and agency Ogilvy & Mather, to activate IBM’s partnership rights to the US leg of the tennis Grand Slam majors.
The data generated by IBM for the tournament was filtered through automated electronic-music algorithms to create statistic-based sounds from the matches.
Every match had its own beat and rhythm.
Indeed, the music csan be heard in real-time by fans attending the Open.
Anyone logging in to the campaign site can click on ‘Men’s Matches’ or ‘Women’s Matches’ to hear the track from each match played.
Furthermore, IBM and Ogilvy are promoting the online experience through paid media on various websites, through social media, at the US Open site and on its own website.
‘For every match that is played, users can listen to music generated from the match in real time,’ said Ann Rubin, VP-branded content and global creative at IBM.
‘It allows you to engage with our brand in a unique way. Analytics and cloud technology are hard things to explain, so it’s good for us to show these technologies in action, in ways people can understand.’
Comment
This online experience aims to showcase the power off IBM’s analytics and cloud technology from a creative perspective.
Opinion seems split on the automatic tune results.
Some describe it as ‘gorgeous but ambient’, whilst others claim they are ‘interesting, but lacking in melody’.
But Murphy has subsequently addressed this by remixing sounds from two matches into a composed, dark, funky jam and releasing them to the public.
You can listen to the tracks on Soundcloud here https://soundcloud.com/ibm
Links
US Open ‘Sessions’ Campaign Website
http://sessions.usopen.org/#!/
US Open ‘Sessions On Soundcloud
IBM At The US Open
http://www.ibm.com/smarterplanet/us/en/smarter-enterprise/case-studies/us-open.html
Tool Website
