UX CHALLENGE

20 Animators, a Body and Performance Class, and an Experimental Ensemble

We needed to combine the work of three groups of artists into a night of experimentation and play.

My team designed and built the tower and projection mapping surrounding live musicians in the second half of the exhibition.

UX SOLUTION

The Tower of Babble

A free-standing frame of projected animations surrounds musicians from the Exploded Ensemble. The videos are remixed live in concert with the music.

UX PROCESS

Defining the Experience Flow

Building a Tower

I designed and led fabrication of the 10' tall frames surrounding the musicians.

This structure supported six sides stretched with scrim, reflective enough to capture the animations, and transparent enough to show the musicians performing inside.

Using QLab, our team VJ'd a collection of animations created by the visual design team and our peers in Animation Studio.

In a hidden side room of the performance space, Nik Diamant puppeteered real-time 3D avatars that he created. We cut in a feed of Nik's performance along with the animations.

Event Details

Every Possible Utterance was produced through the collaboration of Exploded Ensemble, Animation Studio, and Activating the Body: Physical Computing and Technology in Performance (all Fall 2019).

The event's theme is based upon Jorge Louis Borges’ short story “The Library of Babel,” prompting a search for the possibility of meaning in randomness and the power of infinity.

The first half of the experience featured exploration and interaction, with sculptures, roving musicians, and performers from Exploded Ensemble and Activating the Body.

Audience members were invited to don 3D glasses in anticipation of the second half.

The second half presented projection art in concert with a live musical performance in MuseumLab's Assembly Hall.

This exhibition was made possible by generous support from the Frank-Ratchye STUDIO for Creative Inquiry and CMU IDeATe at Carnegie Mellon University along with partners at MuseumLab.

Photographs courtesy of Sally Maxon and Christina Brown.