August 27, 2012
Vocal Mocap
"TIFF Nexus is an exciting new initiative designed to equip Ontario storytellers with the network, skills and partners they need to succeed in the rapidly evolving digital media landscape. TIFF Nexus will support Canada’s film, game, digital and new media communities as well as foster integrations between academics, industry members and enthusiasts."
As an X-Men geek from tweenhood, I was thrilled to learn TIFF is hosting an exhibition of the work of X-Men Master: Gordon Smith. At the opening I met Nick Pagee, Programmer for TIFF Nexus, and had a fun conversation about importing digital effects from blockbusterpopcornland to the rarefied and respectable world of "legit" theatre.
Nick followed up the next day with an email turning me on to the work of Golan Levin, an artist and educator at Carnegie Mellon University, and director of the STUDIO for Creative Inquiry, an interdisciplinary arts-research center.
Messa di Voce (Golan Levin, Zachary Lieberman, Jaap Blonk, and Joan La Barbara) augments the speech, shouts and songs produced by two virtuoso vocalists with real-time interactive visualizations. Messa di Voce exists in both performance and installation versions; more information on the installation version can be found at the official Messa di Voce web site. Excerpts from five of the 14 Messa di Voce scenes performed at the ICA, London in 2003:
Footfalls (2006), an outgrowth of the "Bubbles" module from Messa di Voce, is an interactive audiovisual installation in which the stomping of the visitors' feet creates cascading avalanches of bouncy virtual forms.
