[ISEA2011] Panel: Peter Richard­son (moderator) – Visual Effects Remixed

Panel Statement

Chair Per­son: Peter Richard­son
Pre­sen­ters: Ste­fan Müller Arisona, Steve Gib­son & Chris­t­ian Schnei­der

Vi­sual ef­fects (VFX) are the var­i­ous com­puter gen­er­ated processes by which im­agery is cre­ated and or ma­nip­u­lated out­side the con­text of a live ac­tion film shoot. Tra­di­tion­ally mov­ing image vi­sual medi­ums in a per­for­ma­tive / gallery con­text have been pri­mar­ily ex­pe­ri­enced as “play­back” medi­ums, in which ma­te­r­ial is fixed in time and is played from be­gin­ning to end. Real-time vi­su­als on the other hand re­quire the in­ter­ven­tion of a per­former or a user. In the case of the VJ or live film­maker, he or she chooses the video clips in real-time, se­lects the op­tions for ef­fects and de­ter­mines the com­posit­ing of im­ages and ef­fects. Re­cently a num­ber of (tra­di­tional) Nar­ra­tive film mak­ers have moved away from struc­tural nar­ra­tive and into the realm of ‘live cin­ema’, remix­ing their films for au­di­ences as a per­for­ma­tive ex­pe­ri­ence. This raises in­ter­est­ing pos­si­bil­i­ties to ex­tend the genre with a per­for­ma­tive art based ap­proach. British di­rec­tors Peter Green­away and Mike Fig­gis in­creas­ingly work with this method. The ‘live cin­ema’ ex­pe­ri­ence is gen­er­ally lim­ited to pre shot or cap­tured vi­su­als which are processed or remixed. As yet few have at­tempted to in­cor­po­rate ‘live’ vi­sual ef­fects as part of this cin­e­matic ex­pe­ri­ence. “VFX Remixed” seeks to stim­u­late de­bate and gen­er­ate the­o­ret­i­cal pro­to­types for live cin­ema ex­pe­ri­ences that uti­lize the tech­nolo­gies of VFX and com­bine to cre­ate a more im­mer­sive cin­e­matic per­for­mance ex­pe­ri­ence. Areas of in­ter­est in­clude au­dio-vi­sual per­for­mance VJ(ing), phys­i­cal and se­ri­ous gam­ing, com­puter-based in­stal­la­tions in­cor­po­rat­ing real-time vi­sual pro­cess­ing.

  • Peter Richard­son is a filmmaker and researcher based in Dundee and London. After graduating form Goldsmiths College in 1989, Peter spent 14 years in the film industry. He has exhibited video works at The Barbican London, City Racing Gallery London and Marian Goodman Gallery New York. His experimental films have been screened on television and at film festivals worldwide including: ’Out Takes’ Brazil, New York, Los Angeles, Cannes, Cork, London and Hamburg film festivals and The National Review Of Live Art The Tramway Glasgow. Peter is a Lecturer at Duncan Of Jordanstone College Of Art & Design in Scotland and is currently Director of the Visual Effects Research Lab (VERL) A European Union funded project that undertakes transdiscaplinary research into high-resolution image technologies.