The Lifehouse Method was an Internet site where applicants could sit for an electronic musical portrait made up from data they enter into the website.
Although Townshend originally intended Lifehouse as a multi-media, audience-participation musical production to follow the Who's Tommy, difficulties in funding and implementing the project led to its release as the Who's album Who's Next instead.
In Lifehouse Townshend predicted a future wherein the population was forced inside by heavy pollution and connected in their homes to an internet-like "Grid" through which media moguls provided programmed entertainment.
To do this, he adapted VCS3 and ARP synthesizers and a quadraphonic PA to create a machine capable of generating and combining personal music themes written from computerized biographical data.
"Wire & Glass" was developed into an unfinished musical workshopped at Vassar College, in addition to Townshend intended the story to become an animated film.