updating Crevice
August 9th, 2006It is now three weeks since I finished the residency in Perth (PICA) with David Corbet and Paea Leach. The three of us are now deeply into the final development and rehearsal of Four Acts of Violence Leading Up To Now which premieres in Melbourne in late September and then shifts across to Perth as part of the ArtRage festival there.
As part of “Four Acts” we have been looking into integrating a cluster of micro50s (intiated during the PICA R&D residency) projected at 720×240 - an initial example can be seen here - this will be one of perhaps 10 two second movies projected (with undecided space/time between) at the culmination of the project.
One of the premises of Four Acts (an interest resulting from my doctoral research) was in developing a live performance project that also existed (in part) online. Although the Four Acts site is very much UNDER CONSTRUCTION (going live in mid-September 06) the idea is that the witnessing of the project is available in both ‘realms’. Rather than the web site simply giving details of the performance (and playing second fiddle), I am looking at how the site can generate meaning potentials independently and in ‘dialogue’ with the performances. This has been influenced, in particular, by two film sites - memento and Requiem For A Dream - both of which are experiences unto themselves, regardless of whether or not you have seen the films.
In addition, I have been working on my basic animation skills (go here for an example). This has involved working in After Effects and taking the handwriting of performer Paea Leach, scanned, prepped in photoshop and then (rather painstakingly) animated. My thinking here is in developing a suitable technique (or several techniques) for animating the construction of “house” as part of Crevice.
At this stage I am interested in such a hand drawn look - to play with the sense of flimsiness and instability in the house - as if it was easily erasable. I plan only to be working in 2D at any one time, but the apparent 3D-ness of the environment will be manifest by having four walls (surrounding the audience) displaying time synced animations. A big task.
The other major “advance” in the early stages of “Crevice” has been to commence discussions with an architect here in Melbourne - Kristin Green. Because David Corbet (working on the audio for “Crevice”) and I have started to feel that the animated footage presented on the four screens could be a mixture of materials developed from real video footage (go here for a very primitive and hard to see example) AND video footage obtained from a virtual house (built, say, in autoCAD or even sketchUp), we thought that it would be entirely appropriate (and stimulating) to talk to an architect about her thoughts on the project - with an eye to being involved in the process (and they would also then be capable of designing the floor/underground structure as well). I have a sense that this combination of virtual and real animations (as it were) will inherently destabilise (or perhaps poeticise?) the viewing experience of the project …
But for now, Crevice is on hold - until Four Acts is up and running.
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