The Builders Association and dbox, SUPER VISION: COSTUME
SUPER VISION tells three stories
1. As he crosses successive borders, a solitary traveler gradually is forced to reveal all of his personal information, until his identity becomes transparent, with no part of his life left outside the boundaries of datasurveillance.
2. A young woman (Jen), addicted to the white noise of constant connection, maintains a long-distance relationship with her Grandmother. As she makes efforts to digitally archive her Grandmother's past, the Grandmother slips into senility.
3. A father covertly exploits his young son's personal data to meet the demands of the family's lifestyle. This ploy escalates beyond the father's control, until he is compelled to disappear. His wife and son are left with a starkly diminished data portrait, and his escape is shadowed by the long reach of the datasphere.
Allen Hahn
Nick Kaye: One of the things that I have found very interesting is in the family scenes David Pence and Kyle deCamp seem to have a kind of slight luminosity that looks – that is a little bit like the light you get from the video. Stewart Laing referred to this in relation to the costume design and the reflection of light. It begins to sort of amplify this exchange between the live performer and the mediated set and the other video images. Is this something you were pursuing?
Left to right: David Pence (John Fletcher Sr.) onstage and in live
mediation; John Fletcher Jr. (Owen Phillips in projection);
Kyle deCamp (Carol) onstage.
Video still.
Allen Hahn: Yeah, well in a funny way I think that luminosity you are talking about is a function of the restrictions on what is even possible in a space of that shape with projection on the front and the rear in such close proximity to the performers. Because that set leaves you with the sole option of lighting things from the side, which is an inherently more dynamic or dramatic way of lighting the figure, it’s not possible to light the figure evenly. It provides its own kind of depth, which up against the accomplished nature of the animation works perfectly well. Where that ends is where the costumes begin, because the costumes have to meet certain requirements as well. The first suit we had Rizwan Mirza in was a light coloured suit - and it was the right suit for the character, but it ended up running afoul of the projection screen because it bounced so much light into the screen that video was seriously compromised. No matter what I did to control it, the light just bounced right back into the RP. It created an aura around him that mitigated the projections to an unacceptable level. The suit was rethought and a new one found that I think works better with overall balance.
SUPER VISION credits
