A City's Musical Memory
The "Old Shanghai popular songs" （时代曲）of old Shanghai has traveled a century-long journey and become an inseparable part of the city's cultural genes and collective memory.
The Oncoming Digital Torrent
In the digital age—especially amidst the rapid development of technologies like artificial intelligence—information floods our vision indiscriminately, regardless of sequence or category. This overwhelming deluge brings convenience, but also breeds confusion in life choices and a sense of lost meaning.
A Musical Thought Experiment Under New Technologies
Imagine a singer who has witnessed a century of Shanghai’s musical evolution, absorbed vast amounts of its cultural information, and whose soul is eternally alive. What kind of being would such a highly evolved intelligence become?
And where would it go? Today’s rapidly developing technologies may enable us to explore such a fantasy—"Ballad of Wandering Songs" is one such creative experiment.
AI-generated composition? Robotic arm performance? Will the boundaries of technology constrain the boundaries of art—or expand them?
When Pingtan Meets the Digital deluge
What if a singer from a hundred years ago awoke in today's dazzlingly fast-paced world—how would she make sense of it?
If we look back at a century of musical heritage in Shanghai, what insights might it offer to our current digital age?
The story of Ballad of Wandering Songs was born from such questions.
The soul of a female singer from a hundred years ago awakens—emerging from within a robotic arm.
Lost in an unfamiliar world, she sees the overwhelming digital torrent flooding in, but cannot see where she came from. Her whispered songs catch the attention of a Pingtan performer. Their meeting is both a first encounter and a reunion. This soul dwelling in machinery is the very star the performer once heard on old records, the voice kept alive in family stories.
Their musical narratives intertwine in a dual retelling—of a drifting past, of faded glamor and fleeting beauty, but also of companionship, inspiration, and resonance through the journey of growth.
When they return to the present moment, the fog still lingers—but where is the light to guide them?
”Melodic Echo Odyssey" is a collaborative work by Limit Image Studio and the Shanghai Pingtan Troupe, in partnership with expert teams from various labs at Tongji University’s College of Design and Innovation and NYU Shanghai. From sound archive research and technological development to speculative design and reflections on the relationship between art and humanity, the creative team has integrated this series of explorations and experiments into the performance.
Drawing on selected materials from Shanghai’s musical history as the foundational database, the project revisits and reimagines the city’s musical memory while exploring the possibilities of AI-generated music. The performance takes iconic and widely influential elements such as Pingtan and Old Shanghai popular songs—hallmarks of a century of Shanghai’s musical evolution—as the medium for investigating AI in music. Through this artistic journey, it invites audiences to reflect on music and seek a way out of the “maze of information,” and to rediscover the courage to move forward.
Program Chapters:
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Illusions Like Dreams
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The Past Like Smoke
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Reunion, As If Never Parted
Creative Team:
LIMAGE STUDIO
Co-Producers:
Shanghai Pingtan Troupe
College of Design and Innovation, Tongji University
Technical Support:
Robotic Arm Lab, College of Design and Innovation, Tongji University
Interactive Media Arts Program, NYU Shanghai
Key Creators and Performers:
Performance: Shanghai Pingtan Troupe
Executive Producer: Zhang Yinan
Director & Artistic Director: Li Yuejuan
Music Director: Johann Niegl (Germany)
Composer & Arranger: Deng Qing
Scriptwriter & Stage Supervisor: Liu Jing
Robotic Arm Development: Zheng Kangyi
Interactive System Development: Jung Hyun Moon (Korea)
Project Coordinator: Zhang Ruoyu
AI Technology Support: Guo Weiwei
Cultural Consultants: Yan Banzhi, Yun Jiayan, Ding Xia, Chen Yixin
Calligraphy Art: Ye Jiayi
Lighting Design: Shen Yun
Lighting Execution: Hou Yinzhu
Costume & Styling Consultant: Zhuo Yanran
Design & Development Team:
Cao Yanbin, Wang Ziyu, Tian Yanyang, Fu Yutong, Shi Lvyun, Wang Yiou, Hu Dingxin, Zhao Xiaoyu, Liu Kexin, Liu Wenyi, Zhu Ziyan