The creation of a Web Server for the Mr.White project

Artistic research by Giorgio Zangarini

Mr. White by Livia Malossi Bottignole is a game piece, a genre of experimental music that can be considered as controlled improvisation. Mr. White is inspired by the game ‘Undercover’, a social deduction game that models a conflict between two groups: a minority (the Undercover), and a majority (the Civilians). At the start of the game, each musician is secretly assigned a role affiliated with one of these teams and a secret musical material, which is the only clue for them to discover their identities and oust their enemies. The game has two alternating phases: first, a day role, during which they must carefully give away information about their fragment to try to find out who is on their team and who isn’t, and second, a night role, in which players debate the identities of players and vote to eliminate a suspect. Through multiple rounds of elimination, they will discover their own identities and oust their enemies. Rounds are shown also to the audience via projections and images, who are the only ones aware of all the identities of the players.This piece can be played by any number of musicians and instrument types, and the length of the piece is not pre-determined and can be set by the ensemble. “Mr. White is under copyright of composer Livia Malossi Bottignole.

Research by Giorgio Zangarini: “The creation of a Web Server for the Mr.White project” supported by LOOS and the municipality of The Hague.

The Mr.White game piece required a system to enable communication between themusicians and the conductor. My idea was to create a Web server with the purpose ofcreating such a dialogue. The Web Server was created with NodeJs hosted inside a Maxpatch. Full report available soon on the website of the LOOS Foundation.