Flame Keepers

A Live-Streaming Perpetual Sonic Art Installation

Flame Keepers weaves together multiple streams of music into unexpected, evolving combinations.

The installation was conceived by composer Jakub Ciupinski and developed by Avneesh Sarwate and Ryan Rose. Since launching February 2021, Metropolis has commissioned 100+ composers who have created over 3,000 stems to date as they “tend the bonfire” for this real-time perpetual concert.

About This Installation

Composer Jakub Ciupinski’s concept and design for Flame Keepers was commissioned in April 2020 and launched in February 2021 by Metropolis Ensemble during the pandemic to expand opportunities for music creators to collaborate and inspire new audiences.

Invited artists are commissioned weekly, tasked with supplying new original material every seven hours through their assigned week. As a result, the piece will evolve in unexpected and delightful ways as an open-ended collective composition designed to run uninterrupted in real-time, twenty-four hours a day, seven days a week.

This virtual bonfire is a connected experience everyone can share, conceived out of times of hardship and social isolation. You can go behind the scenes with Jakub Ciupinski and Vanessa Ague to learn more about how this project came to life.

How It Works

Flame Keepers features seven musical ideas, or streams, looping simultaneously in real-time. As the streams repeat, the musical experience will never be or sound the same because the individual loops run asynchronously and their durations are divergent.

As a result, the seven streams shift and realign into subtle new configurations continuously. The perpetual metamorphosis of this composition is catalyzed by a commissioned prompt: every seven hours, a select composer serving as the Flamer Keeper is given the chance to replace any existing stream with a single new one.

The moment a new stream is introduced, the system enters a seven-hour lockdown, during which the composition cannot be altered by human hands. After the given seven hour lockdown is over, the Keeper may swap another stream and the cycle begins anew.

Passing the Torch

At the beginning of the week, the new Flamer Keeper inherits the state of the installation from the previous one. Due to the seven hour lockdown mechanism, it is impossible to swap all seven streams in less than forty-nine hours. During this three day transition, the new Flame Keeper builds within the composition created by the previous composer, gradually making it their own.

Ghost Streams

If the Flame Keeper misses any of the upload windows, the system engages a fail-safe algorithm that replaces any one of the streams with one randomly selected from the historical archive of musical streams of all previous Flame Keepers. The results might be harmonious, cacophonous, anodyne, or expressive, yet always surprising. If left completely abandoned, the composition will evolve with unpredictable results, continuously.

Flash Back

Flame Keepers also features a tool to travel back in time to experience any previous Flame Keeper's work, any seven-hour stream, and any three day transition between artists. The most recent artists are at the bottom of the page.

Support Our Artists

Metropolis exists to support outstanding performers and composers through the creation of new work.

All artists and developers for Flame Keepers were paid for their work. During the pandemic, we created new opportunities for our artists to do what they do best: make and share new music with you. Your donation ensures we can continue to support our artist community.

Listen to Flame Keepers

In February 2022 (one year after the launch of Flame Keepers), Metropolis and composer Jakub Ciupinski released a track featuring a one-week example of the Flame Keepers process, featuring Jakub’s own contributions to the project as the first commissioned contributor.

Every seven hours, Jakub had the option to replace any stream with a new one, and once he did, the system locked out changes for another seven hours and the software took over. And if he didn’t chose a stream in that brief window of unlocked time, the system selected one at random. This track opens a window for listeners into the endless transformation made possible through this digital sonic art installation.