We are thrilled to share highlights from 24 Hours @ Once, a prototype 6-hour video installation and live music performance that explored questions of human collectivity and temporality. This immersive prototype event took place at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute’s CRAIVE Lab on Saturday, September 14, 2024.

The installation featured live video feeds from 24 time zones, simultaneously projected onto 24 screens, alongside live musical performances based on the North Indian classical raga system, with each raga corresponding to a specific hour of the Earth’s daily cycle.

This event marked the first realization of the dynamic 24 Hours @ Once project, the result of an ongoing collaboration between Arts Letters & Numbers, RPI’s School of Architecture, visionary filmmaker Bill Morrison, and acclaimed composer/pianist Michael Harrison’s Raga Cycle Project. The performance featured vocalist Ina Filip, keyboardist Elliot Cole, electronic musician Benoit Rolland, and Bangladeshi tabla player Mir Naqibul Islam, as well as Xu Bing’s SCA-1 Art Satellite, with artistic direction by ALN founding director David Gersten, RPI Architecture faculty Carla Leitao and Ed Keller, and EMPAC research engineer Samuel Chabot.

In future iterations, 24 Hours @ Once and the Raga Cycle Project will expand to include 24 hours of new music with 24 ragas adapted to every hour of the day and night, along with the integration of an extraordinary 25th perspective — a ‘25th Hour.’ The music explores hybrid relationships between Indian ragas (melodic archetypes) and talas (rhythmic cycles), and elements of Western music. Ragas and Indian classical techniques are adapted for the piano, tuned in a unique form of just intonation designed by Michael Harrison. Xu Bing’s SCA-1 Art Satellite will project images onto a screen in outer space while capturing video footage of itself in relation to Earth. Conceived as a ‘25th Hour,’ this perspective invites deeper reflection on global interconnectivity.

Photo credit: Bill Morrison

Background image by Jeff Carter Dan Harpole Cistern CAD Rendering