A format in which changes at different speeds become one work

The options

The order shown is not a ranking of preference.

1. Option 1

   A steady common frame

   It creates a structure in which the actual change received in each frame responds in the next frame, but fast fine changes are bundled together and the intervals waiting for slow responses grow longer.

2. Option 2

   Overlapping cycles

   It preserves the passages of each timescale and exchanges actual responses where the cycles meet, but changes outside the meeting points proceed separately, making joint change hard to read.

3. Option 3

   A long-term work that takes up each other's traces

   Subsequent responses alter and carry on the actual sound and light traces left behind, but there are few round trips and the audience may not see the return of a response during a visit.

The situation as it stands

If the format is not settled, building the transformation rules is delayed, and the opportunity for slow round-trip tests secured during the preparation period may itself be lost.

The sound and light production space of the fictional co-creation council Residual Layer

1. Premise 1Independent assumption: Suppose there is a medium through which human adults and virtual entities, whose response timescales differ, exchange sound and light changes. Only the function of being able to produce a response following a change actually received is assumed; the feasibility of the technology and the entities' consciousness or subjective experience are not established.
2. Premise 2Synthetic constraint: On shared elapsed time, preparation is six months and the presentation is two years, and the only permitted materials are the timbres and color and brightness changes provided by participants. The production team can build transformation rules for only one format, and there are two round-trip responses with the slowest participant that can be completed during preparation.
3. Premise 3Synthetic conflict: The side making fast changes worries that fine passages will be averaged out, while the side making slow changes worries that the work will close before they can respond. The viewing design team struggles over which connections to reveal, since the audience cannot perceive all layers of change at once.

Where it holdsDecide on one format for a joint sound-and-light work within a limited preparation period and presentation period.

What can be lost

• Participants in the fast-changing layer may lose the chance to distinguish fine passages and to revise them in response to the other side.
• Participants in the slow-changing layer may lose the chance for their actual response to be reflected in the work's subsequent states.
• The audience may miss some of the chance to perceive either the richness of individual changes or the mutual response between changes during the limited viewing.

What is still unknown

1. Unknown 1How traces transmitted through transformed timescales make a difference in the other side's next response cannot be known adequately from only two round trips during preparation.
2. Unknown 2It is unconfirmed whether changes arising between the meeting points of overlapping cycles will carry into co-creation at the next meeting point, or remain a jointing of separate works.
3. Unknown 3How fully a partially viewing audience perceives the connection between earlier traces and subsequent responses cannot be known.

Signals to decide again

• The medium coordinator compares, each month on a shared elapsed time, the distinctions of passages that disappear before and after transformation.
• The exchange records manager confirms, each time a round trip is completed, how long it took for the actual response to return after the trace was received and how many complete round trips have occurred.
• The viewing design team collects, once a quarter during the presentation period on a shared elapsed time, the layers of change and response connections perceived by the audience.