Revolutions, live at Market Hall (10 min. 2012) Live video design with performance by Lester Alfonso and co-creators Tegan Moss and Jennifer Elchuk.
Another Vimeo/Facebook premiere for Day 76 of the Great Archive Upload. The video that came out of this project began with a question that instantly began to gnaw and grate at me as soon as I heard it. The question sparked a sudden and unexpected renewal of interest in my own development as a video artist. It was an innocent enough question. The question: would you be able to project a circular throw with your video projector?
Tegan Moss asked me the pivotal question because she had stumbled upon a cheap and easy way to create white circular projection screens made from hula hoops and Lycra fabric. While developing our first multi-art project Revolutions, Tegan and I brought in Jennifer Opal Elchuk. In February 2012, we collaborated for the first time on an interactive video installation called Self-Love created for a showcase event at Artspace in Peterborough. It featured original content and invited spectators to interact with the projections with circular screens.
Work on Revolutions accelerated when it was selected for the Emergency Festival. The technical capability of the software program barely kept up with our imaginations. Further to that, we applied screenplay techniques to the piece to inject a kind of narrative about creation/destruction.
We plotted a movement and video design performance with fifteen distinct plot beats that we then shared that with musician Jared Bremner (aquapher) with approximate times. He worked on his own until we had some time to hone the material and we responded to each other back and forth until we settled on the final running time.
Chrysalis, in 15 beats (our initial brainstorming)
- Opening Image (1): seed /
- Theme Stated (5): transformation / growth
- Set-Up (1-10): growth / death (appear)
- Catalyst (12): falling (trigger the dancers)
- Debate (12-25): moth / butterfly – light / dark (swivel)
- Break into Two (25): up / down / more focus on up (first climb)
- B Story (30): groundwork / ants / snake / more focus on down /
cocoon (hoops/groundwork/cocoon) - Fun and Games (30-55): elaborate drop
- Midpoint (55): wrist hold
- Bad Guys Close In (55-75): (2nd climb)
- All Is Lost (75): Destruction
- Dark Night of the Soul (75-85): quiet
- Break into Three (85): the third element
- Finale (85-110): planting seed / agriculture
- Final Image (110): Snakes intertwine / cosmic serpent / DNA
The following year, for the annual Emergency Festival, we were selected to present a new work called Chrysalis. We took a similar approach to our collaborative process but this time following a journey from the root to the crown chakra and each corresponding sounds and colours.
Aside from smaller performances, we have not had an opportunity to create in almost ten years! We are working on something new and exciting now!
More soon! Stay tuned! —LA
P.S. If you’re liking these daily posts, perhaps you can consider becoming a monthly donor for a year or making a one-time contribution. It would seriously help a lot. Your money goes directly into supporting an artist committed to continually become the best version of himself. Thank you so much! Much love, LA