Visions of America: Amériques is a site-specific architectural video installation, developed to illuminate and enhance the Varèse’s composition and to activate the architecture of Frank Gehry’s Walt Disney Concert Hall.
The project is a part of Refik Anadol‘s MFA thesis about ‘Architecture as a Canvas, Light as a Material’ at the UCLA and uses custom built vvvv software to listen and respond to the music in real time, using architecture as a canvas and light as a material. In addition, the movements of Esa-pekka Salonen, as he conducts are captured by Kinect to inform the visuals displayed.
I approached this collaboration from the standpoint of a non-linear and ephemeral interaction between Salonen, Varèse, and me, and hope that I will be able to transform Varèse’s timeless musical fiction into an immersive visual medium through which a new kind of storytelling will occur. Rather than approaching this medium as a means of escape into some disembodied techno-utopian fantasy, this project sees itself as a means of return. It aims to facilitate a temporary release from our habitual perceptions and culturally biased assumptions about being in the world, and to enable us, however momentarily, to perceive our own stories and the stories around us freshly.
Following the ‘Best Vision Award’ at the Microsoft Research Summit for his thesis, Refik Anadol, together with Sebastian Neitsch & Woeishi Lean, worked on developing custom software that has ability to analyse sound, response with realtime graphics, use dynamic timeline structure, multi-projection through network, realtime texture distribution, advanced 3d video mapping and finally Microsoft Kinect to trace time and enhance visual story by attaching conductor’s body movements onto architectural surface. In addition to providing the audience with a spectacular reality, the project was created to question the limits and potentials of software-based, generative visual arts for concert hall experience.
The result, as images and videos show, was a powerful and immersive experience that engages both visual and auditory senses.
Project Page | Refik Anadol | Sebastian Neitsch | Woeishi Lean
Credits: Refik Anadol (Video Artist), Dave Hunt (Artistic Management), Efsun Erkilic (Executive Producer), Sebastian Neitsch & Woeishi Lean (Senior Generative Designers), Raman K. Mustafa (Senior 3D Designer), Simon Russell (Senior Animator), Bahadir Dagdelen + Michael Hsiu + Kian Khiaban + Toby Heinemann + Laurence Menor (Junior Animators) and Jarad Solomon (Research Assistant).
