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Published on 04/12/2014
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Visions of America: Amériques – Walt Disney Concert Hall

written by Filip Visnjic
Ameriques - 01x

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).

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  • prisme

    if you like this type of black & white abstract visuals, please check this video recorded live in a movie theater in Paris : https://vimeo.com/groups/theshaders/videos/96586056

    cheers

  • Ramon Baker

    Just a bunch of tech layers on top of a same old “black&white, abstract” graphics. Combining technologies is cute but the visual output feels “stocky”. Same stripes, same grids, same meshes, same triangles, same particles, same same. 1950s Conceptual Art period was much more interesting than this.

  • Robert Praxmarer

    same music with orchestra probably less budget (1000 euro) and 4 years old @ Ars Electronica
    Amèriques from 1n0ut on Vimeo.

  • pablo

    It does feel stocky and it really has no meaning. I would have closed my eyes the whole show, way too distracting. But it is not only this project, media arts in general needs better concepts and more poetry. video mapping is already old, now it has to go beyond the novelty of mapping video on a wall. I kinda like the 4 year old video posted below better. it flows nicer.

  • jeff

    Unfortunately I do not agree with this bunch of murmurs. Let’s do justice over here. Close follower-witness of art+tech evolution more than a decade – personally – I’m seeing more than those comments in this magnificent project.

    For three solid reasons:

    1) I’m glad that we do not need to look at a giant hanging absurd screen in a classical concert hall setup – waiting to see the next cut for the same algorithm like the 4 years old Ars Electronica example. (I was there at Brucknerhaus for 7 years in a row and unfortunately most of them failed from a dramaturgy point of view which was very melodramatic and seemed whole reason behind them was just a techy savor.)

    2) I do not clearly observe ‘same’ concept at all. Instead I do not see the same shallow ‘descriptions’ in preceding examples again and again and again. I do not see the ‘same’ forced concept taken place in light+art+city festival projects again and again and again. I do not see the ‘same’ black+white video art tradition that’s going on last 15 years in classical concert environments. Instead I see very well executed conceptual and technical staging. Creativity lies on both conceptual and technical part. (But it also made me wish for an unedited clip of the entire performance.)

    3) I’m seeing a concrete reason to use generative software workflow with a depth camera including a very satisfactory example of connection between architecture, music and visual arts.

    Before closing the curtains – criticism for those type of edgy projects should rely on strong analytic thinking process. Glad you did not forget to give credits for the tech side of the project, at least.

  • Nesbo

    well said jeff. no gimmick feeling with well documented piece.