Virtual Gorillaz

Q. What do you get if you cross 30 programmers with Blur's Damon Albarn?

A. virtual Gorillaz

Big it up for 2D, Murdoc, Noodle and Russel, from chart toping group Gorillaz; they may just be the start of the next big revolution in music. Music and computing took a cool, clever, creative leap forward in 1999 when Damon Albarn of Indy pop group Blur joined up with designer Jamie Hewlett to create an amazing cartoon band, Gorillaz. Gorillaz is a now successful pop group of entirely computer generated band members. Damon Albarn provides the music and computers provide the performers. The band to date have released 4 albums: Gorillaz, G-Sides, Laika Come Home and most recently Demon Days in 2005 which went to Number 1 in the album charts. Impressive form even for a real band. But the group aren't just fake biographies, pictures on album covers and cartoon characters on videos. This virtual band also perform live (if that's the right word for it). For a recent MTV music awards a team of 30 programmers, animators and designers spent three months creating a sophisticated digital performance for Gorillaz that included having the band 'programmed' to react to the audience, and there are apparently plans for a UK tour on the cards. This sort of imaginative use of computers and technology to create new types of digital performance looks set to keep us entertained well into the future.