Sydney Opera House Creative Play – Lego

Sydney Opera House Presents built a lego structure for their January 2014 creative play program. Children were given free reign to build on vertical plates with a range of classic blocks. 

I was commissioned to build several cameras into the structure that would be projected on the nearest wall. As well as live video the cameras took timelapse footage that was played back every 5 minutes, as well as daily timelapses of the entire project. The supervising artists were able to reposition the cameras both physically and zoom in on them digitally. 

The vertical nature of the plates tends to lead to representative building – I.E writing names and creating images in 2D. The idea of the video elements was to encourage builders to think about different perspectives in time and space and develop their designs accordingly.

Sponsored by Lego Education.

The Man Who Dreamt The Stars Gallery

Malcolm Allison and Alicia Battestini in The Man Who Dreamt The StarsMalcolm Allison and Alicia Battestini

 “Dazzling stars, protruding beams and projected imagery – The senses are definitely stimulated by interactive video projection that amplifies emotion and immerses the audience in the story.” – Dean Margerison, Sydney Arts Guide, Feb 17 2014

“Visually, The Man Who Dreamt The Stars is one of the most spectacular shows I’ve ever seen. The lights and the technical effects in this show are absolutely, gobsmacking exquisite. Toby Knyvett, the lighting and video designer, deserves every accolade that can be heaped on him. I don’t think I’ve ever seen a show that was so visually stunning.” – Jodi McAlister, Australian Stage, 18 Feb 2014

The Man Who Dreamt The Stars is the final version of the Star Project. Developed over three years by Merrigong Theatre Company and the Illawarra Disability Trust. 

The project features a mixed ensemble including performers who identify as disabled. It made use of infrared tracking technology and responsive projected environments. 

With –
Alicia Battestini, Drayton Morley, Malcolm Allison, Phillip Prentice

Director – Anne-Louise Rentell
Set & Costume Designer – Imogen Ross
Sound Designer – Daryl Wallis
Movement Director – Lee Pemberton

Lighting & Video Designer – Toby Knyvett

Continue reading for the full gallery.

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The River Eats 2013 Video

The River Eats 2013, presented by Performance Space 

“A standout of Melbourne’s 2012 Next Wave Festival, The River Eats is a visually stunning fable of transformation and desire.”
Cult Magazine – July 2013

“An audio visual assault that could rival Aphex Twin… a beautiful counterpoint to Shoulder’s live action elements”
Pages Digital – Erin Moy – July 8th 2013

Devised, Performed, Costume & Set Design: Justin Shoulder
Video and 
Lighting Design: Toby Knyvett
Video and SFX: Rebecca Stegh
Composer and Sound Design: Nick Wales
Creative Producer and Dramaturg: Jeff Stein

The River Eats has been supported by the Australian Government through the Australia Council, its arts funding and advisory body, the City of Melbourne through Arts House, Next Wave Festival, and Performance Space.

For more images see here

The River Eats

 

“A standout of Melbourne’s 2012 Next Wave Festival, The River Eats is a visually stunning fable of transformation and desire.”
Cult Magazine – July 2013

“An audio visual assault that could rival Aphex Twin… a beautiful counterpoint to Shoulder’s live action elements”
Pages Digital – Erin Moy – July 8th 2013

Devised, Performed, Costume & Set Design: Justin Shoulder
Video and 
Lighting Design: Toby Knyvett
Video and SFX: Rebecca Stegh
Composer and Sound Design: Nick Wales
Creative Producer and Dramaturg: Jeff Stein

The River Eats has been supported by the Australian Government through the Australia Council, its arts funding and advisory body, the City of Melbourne through Arts House, Next Wave Festival, and Performance Space.

Images by Heidruhn Lohr and Toby Knyvett. 

Technology used includes conventional lighting, infrared tracking and interactive generative visuals programmed in vvvv.

For a video of the performance see here.

See the extended for the full gallery.

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The River Eats 2013 Trailer

From 3 – 13 July at Carriageworks. Presented by Performance Space.

Full info and Buy Tickets Here.

Devised, Performed, Costume & Set Design: Justin Shoulder
Video and 
Lighting Design: Toby Knyvett
Video and SFX: Rebecca Stegh
Composer and Sound Design: Nick Wales
Creative Producer and Dramaturg: Jeff Stein

VVVV Contribution: TextFlock (Spreads)

* Note – I’ve setup a new blog for articles and contributions like this, click here*

I contributed a new module for vvvv, TextFlock. 

ProgramShot.jpg

It’s a very basic particle system that morphs from one text string to another.

Download it here from the vvvv site.

vvvv is free for non-commercial use. If you want to to learn coding to create digital artwork vvvv is a great place to start. 

www.vvvv.org

Continue reading to see a preview of what it looks like. It’s a 6mb Animated GIF so on slow connections this might not be worthwhile.  

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Realnaut – Rapid Prototype 2012

RapidPrototypeWeb0005.jpg
Realnaut is a new independent artwork I’m creating. I presented a first-draft version at the inaugural Rapid Prototype event, held at Alaska Projects in the Kings Cross Car Park, 28th August 2012. Realnaut explores the idea of live editing reality. 
It consists of a helmet worn by members of the public. The helmet contains a head mounted display. On top of the helmet is a camera.The camera view is processed by a computer before being fed back to the helmet. A projector shows bystanders what is happening.

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CubeJam Prototype

Cubejam is an interactive artwork that allows young people to make music. Its first prototype was deployed at the South Coast Children’s Festival 2011.

It is inspired by the Reactable tangible music interface. It uses the same open source fiducial tracking engine: reacTIVision. As such Cubejam itself is also open source. I write my code in the vvvv toolkit, which is not open source but free for non-commerical use. You can download my vvvv patches in the extended at the bottom of this post. 

Cubejam Prototype 2011 from Toby Knyvett on Vimeo.

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