Written on the Body

Just back from a very interesting event hosted in the digital planetarium in the Thinktank – an interactive science musem in the Digbeth area of Birmingham.

As part of Fracture – a series of projects combining dance and moving images, our Project X Presents visual co ordinator Leon Trimble (aka VJ Chromatouch) has collaborated with choreographer Lisa Wetton over the last several months to produce “Written on the body”.

The work was created specially for the unusual environment of £400,000 worth of digital planetarium – a dome shaped screen on which a number of digital projectors create a versatile and immersive viewing experience. An introduction from the planetarium curator offered a brief but involving demo of its regular operation, as well as introducing the new work as only the second piece yet made worldwide specially for what was billed as a new visual medium.

The piece itself was developmental in nature with content inspired by mapping the forces of energy which are said to instigate movement in man and in nature. As striking and attractive as the experience was, there was a lasting sense that it asked more questions than it answered in terms of the unique avenues which the 360 degree environment provides and the challenges of thinking in ways beyond the traditional square two dimensional screen format.

Leon is a tremendously creative guy and afterwards was already talking excitedly about his next project which is to create a different and equally groundbreaking and unqiue (we think) kind of 360 degree visual environment at Project X Presents on November 3rd. For this event, we will be using three stages, each with a projection screen above it (as we did at our first event) but also with a screen between each pair of stages – six screens in all – immersing the audience completely in the virtual visual environment.

Rich
Xx