Circus Acts Performance

Last Thursday, I took part in Circus Acts, an improvisation and collaboration  event between electronic musicians and a visual artist. I was the artist who provided the projection of images on the night.

I had made some loose preparations for the gig that was meant to be an informal experimentation among friends, with a small audience witnessing the happy incidents that sprung out of responding to each of the participants' sounds- mine were visual sounds!

The beauty of such events is that one has to be flexible and quick to adapt! I had never been to the Powerlunches venue before and had made provisions for several eventualities. Still, one has to adapt to the actual conditions- i.e the lighting making the projection yellowy meant that my colours lacked in contrast. I understood fast I had to work more in black and white or darker tones.

Another issue was the position of the screen right behind the musicians, so that might nicely crafted illustrations were not really easily read by the audience. I responded by adapting my designs to work around of and with the musicians, so that an elephant's trunk looked like it was wrapped around Luc Houtkamp's wind instrument!

After the intermission, I decided to respond more directly to the music and go more abstract and immediate. After all, I give my students that exercise and I think it is good to remind oneself of the good results that come from playing and challenging oneself every once in a while!

I ended up enrolling some members of the audience towards the end to come and stick their thumbs in the art materials. And it was good fun! I intend to develop the art band to take on bigger projects and this was a good successful first trial.