“Cinematic Experiments” Public Exhibition March 14 -17, 2019
In situ at the Altona Gate Shopping Centre, the Digital Art Media Lab team created a playful multi-media installation in which digital dance is animated.
Artists Margie Medlin and Nikki Heywood look at some of the experiments from Margie’s Cinematic Experiments project (2017-2019) and discuss the concepts and ideas behind them.
As Part of Dance Massive 2019, The SUBSTATION presents Cinematic Experiments, a playful interactive multi-media installation in which early cinema techniques and digital dance are layered and animated.
Starting with a library of analogue and digital source material, media artists Margie Medlin, Rhian Hinkley, Olaf Meyer and James Wilkinson will devise a series of experiments that combine motion graphics with digital dance choreography by Vicki Van Hout and Patrick Lucky Lartey.
The project fosters collaboration between media artists and their experimentation with responsive technologies. The installation explores audience-triggered interactions of digital dance, layered with unique motion graphics. The project invites audiences to bring a sense of curiosity and explore their own movement in relation to this dynamic installation.
Hosted by Altona Gate Shopping Centre.
Funded by the Australia Council for the Arts.
Exhibition Note
The Digital Art Media Lab team have created a playful multi-media installation in which digital dance is animated.
In the lab, you are invited to bring a sense of curiosity and to explore how you can interact with the animations.
Wander through the pop-up lab in the former beauty salon and you will find a series of “Cinematic Experiments”.
The dance video material utilized in the experiments was recorded between 2017 and 2018. Since then I have created a library of experiments which I published on Vimeo.
Through the experiments, I examined the many ways the cinematic frame intersects with the dance. Such as how the cinematic frame can be used to draw attention to the intricacies of time, space and motion in the dance movement.
My research played with the cinematic frame and editing techniques to create/re-create choreographic structure. For example, by inserting and subtracting time and through postproduction techniques.
This exhibition utilizes my library to create new experiments where the audience is invited to literally interact in different ways with the dance video. The experiments “Jumping” and “Drumming” to the left and right of the space invite visitors to use their own gestures to create unique choreographic structures.
The “Jumping” and “Drumming” experiments also both create real-time responsive instruments where a multiplicity of frames demonstrate the flexibility of cause and effect in digital media.
While in the corridors of former massaging and waxing rooms visitors can take time to discover the kinetic sculptors of dance loops, animated frames and spatial interventions.
Rather than the idea of the frame as a view to another world or the encapsulation of a moment, the experiments use the frame as an object to duet with the dancers. They also explore how the frame’s inside creates a virtual outside. A virtual continuum of movement, that we cannot see but we can imagine.
About the Artists
Margie Medlin, Media artist, Producer & Researcher.
My thematic is the relationship between the moving image and the viewer’s perception of dance, choreographic transference and legibility across screens.
In my practice, I experiment to forge new aesthetic, collaborative and technical ground between analogue and digital technologies. Previous works have focused on the integration of analogue image technologies with state-of-the-art digitally controlled systems, using live video, motion capture, 3D animation, motion control technologies and robotics to create multi-screen installations and performances.
I am committed to generating a shared curiosity around media art development, interdisciplinary training, and experimentation.
Olaf Meyer, Media artist & Interaction design
Olaf Meyer is a multimedia installation artist based in Melbourne. Meyer enjoys working with body and rhythm to create gestural artifacts, weighted towards creating mood through animated movement or riding the iconic significance of time-based form. In his 3D projection mapping work, Meyer uses false shadow and algorithmic texture as a modern play on the concepts of architectural ornament and façade. He is multi-skilled in all areas of design – project development, design and motion graphics production and has extensive experience in team-oriented production environments with a focus on animation and technical direction. His research interests include custom sensor technology and generative techniques with software.
Vicki Van Hout, Dancemaker
Is an Indigenous independent artist with over 20 years’ experience. A graduate of NAISDA Dance College and the Martha Graham School of Contemporary Dance in New York, she went on to perform with major Indigenous dance companies, Bangarra Dance Theatre, and the Aboriginal Islander Dance Theatre, before joining forces with Marilyn Miller as a founding member of Fresh Dancers. With Marilyn, Vicki performed Dear Carrie for One extra Dance and Quinkin for the Adelaide Fringe Festival. Her show Briwyant was the first ever show by an independent Indigenous choreographer to tour nationally and was nominated for an Australian Dance Award for Best Achievement in Independent Dance. Vicki was awarded the 2014 NSW Dance Fellowship for established and mid-career artists – the first Indigenous winner of the Fellowship. She has also completed various residencies in Australia and overseas, including in Austria and Singapore.
Lucky Lartey, Dancemaker
Founded Lucky African Dance in 2012 to share his love for African performance arts and culture with Australia. Lucky is also at the forefront of intercultural and fusion choreography in Australia seen in his original choreographies and work with the Jamestown Collective – Jamestown! And INFUSION No Movement No Sound. Lucky uses his unique position as a performing artist and cultural performer to create experiences that transform and inspire audiences, teams, and students across Australia.
As one of Australia’s most dynamic West African performers, Lucky is well known for his high energy contemporary dance style and his super high split jumps. Lucky is an accomplished and experienced African dancer both in Ghana and Australia and has more than 18 years of training and experience in Traditional African dance and Afro Contemporary. Lucky’s performance repertoire includes choreography from Traditional African, Gumboot dance, and Afro-Contemporary dance. Lucky’s knowledge of dance includes dance routines from Burkina Faso, Ghana, Guinea, Senegal, South Africa and other parts of Africa.
Rhian Hinkley, Media artist
Is a theatre-maker and new media artist based in Melbourne. He is currently the Artistic Director of Nebula a portable studio/theatrical space run by Arts Access Victoria. Nebula has toured extensively throughout Victoria delivering accessible arts programs to a wide range of community groups and individuals. For the past ten years, he has collaborated on numerous works with artists with a disability including the theatrical show Singular 2014 and Under my skin 2016. Rhian has a longstanding relationship with Back to Back theatre, creating the projected components of Lady eats Apple 2016, Ganesh Versus The Third Reich 2011, Food Court 2008 and Soft 2002.
Dance production credits include I could pretend the sky is water by Trevor Patrick 2011, Origami by BalletLab 2006 and Out of Light 2009, Transit 2010, Document 2011, The Recording 2013, Small Details 2016 by Sandra Parker Dance and Aorta 2014 by Stephanie Lake for Chunky Move.
James Wilkinson Sound design
Works in the performing arts as a musician, composer, designer, sound engineer and educator. A graduate of the Victorian College of the Arts (BMus) and Charles Sturt University – Riverina (BA sound) his teaching experience includes lecturing in audio technology at RMIT, Lasalle College of the Arts Singapore, University of Melbourne and Swinburne.
Fascinated by the world of sound his work focuses on the broader understanding of listening, performing, and production of audio in all its forms. His teaching methodology is framed by his experience working in audio production and performing and creating music for concert and theatre. Current work includes a nature sound installation for Glenvill’s Yarra Bend Display Home, system design and lecturing in Sound Design for Film at Swinburne.
Fausto Brusamolino, Media artist & Lighting
Is a lighting designer and creative coder based in Sydney, Australia. Fausto designs lighting for live performances and filming creates his own lighting installations and provides lighting designs and consultation for other artists’ artworks and exhibitions. Fausto’s approach to lighting design organically embraces a wide range of visual techniques, deploys specifically made lighting, mechanical objects, and uses creative coding to build custom made software.
In his work, creative coding is used as a ground for personal research, for prototyping visual solutions, and for building user interfaces to control clusters of lighting or other scenic effects. Creative coding and video design are also implemented as an organic element of the show and become distinctive production assets to create stunning and unique aesthetics.
2017/18
Artist in residence at The SUBSTATION, Melbourne, Australia
During the residencies in 2017 and 2018, I researched and developed Cinematic Experiments a dance and media public art project that links incidental spectators with video dance projections.
Research associates included VICKI VAN HOUT, PATRICK LUCKY LARTEY.
Supported by the Australia Council for the Arts.
