spectropica
Spectropica is a contemporary art event, an urban intervention incorporating thermal spectrum imaging data projection, and live performer/participant interaction. Operating as an intermedial performance presentation in exterior urban sites such as an exposed parking station surrounded by high-rise buildings or structures. The event experience can be conceptualised for what might be considered found spaces and places as site-specific interventions.
The intermedial approach in this project is predictable only so far that established formal architectural territories and boundaries are inevitably challenged and de-territorialised. In-turn providing the currency for alternative spaces and places to continue providing opportunities for innovation, novelty and creative intervention. Repurposed military grade gateway surveillance technology in combination with media art projections mapped to the side of a high-rise building. Live interactions of human kinesthetic movement and dance perceived adjacent to projection mapping vantage points. Thermal spectrum imaging devices have only recently been de-classified for use outside of military and surveillance applications, making them more accessible for creative and innovative deployment in alternative environments.
found space urban choreographic intervention
The project highlights spatial and contextual awareness that underpins expanded media arts and creative practice. Audiences can be participants through the interactive and intermedial combination of digital media and live performance in-situ. The project is a urban art experience set within non-spaces at night. The work is quick to set-up and has an element of guerilla style urban intervention. It can function as an incursion into public or urban non-spaces and suitable as a pop-up art event. The hyper-realities of immersive and virtual space are overlaid on alternative physical spaces and built environments via sophisticated projection mapping, digital media and computer vision technologies. The work is an extension of the site-specific and ephemeral considerations developed through scenographic spatial practices in particular the scale of external urban space.
Spectropica has been presented by the On Edge Media and Performance Festival at the Cairns Centre of Contemporary Arts. The project has been presented by the 2013 Dance Science (DANscienCE Festival) program funded by the CSIRO Discovery Centre, Canberra.
Iteration one: On Edge Media and Performance Festival, Cairns
Projected video sequences of non-sequitur tropical narratives shot with iPhones along with live interactive thermal spectrum imaging displayed on the huge wall surfaces provided by architectural firewalls and external walls of lift shafts as seen from alleyways and parking lots. One projection illuminated a multi-story elevator column with live interactive thermographic images over 20 metres high. The second overlaid the entire firewall of an adjacent multi-story property with high definition video sequences shot using iPhones.
Iteration two: Dance Science program CSIRO Discovery Centre, Canberra
Combining the orientation of audiences in relation to built structures invoked the design comprising of multiple supersized projections and a sonic zone for live dance / sound performance. Set in a public thoroughfare between neighboring buildings provided spatial relationships and conversations between projection and performance. Thermal imaging and depth sensors were channeled through the digital imaging software and programming to be projected live in relationship to the pre-eminent presence of the dancer.
Russell Milledge and Rebecca Youdell of Bonemap
sponsors:
KickArts Contemporary Arts, James Cook University, On Edge Media and Performance Festival, Cairns Centre of Contemporary Arts, Dance Science program CSIRO Discovery Centre Canberra, James Cook University School of Creative Art .
Video documentation: