Tag: collaboration

Making Sensation

Kate Holmes on
Working at SeaChange Arts
The XR Circus team deep in the creative process at SeaChange Arts

Over three days, five different creative pathways unfolded in the final intensive XR Circus workshop. Hosted by SeaChange Arts at the Drill Hall in Great Yarmouth our five artists and companies made the most of three intensive days focused on experimentation. Initial sessions included sharing the vision of each work and presentations from Giles Thacker (Shared Space & Light), George Butler and Andy Baker (two of the Immersion Lab residents at Fusebox).  This set the tone for explorations that focused on visual technologies and included projection mapping, 360 film, motion-capture and working with Unity.  The heart of the three days was about doing and making; about finding ways to create the work that will be presented in Brighton in less than a month’s time. The team also included our aerial rigger Milo Foster Prior from Hightop Circus/ Brighton Spiegeltent and resident project creative technologists Jeremiah Ambrose (University of Brighton) and Nick Driftwood.

This residency saw the XR Circus team make the most of the space and the time afforded, working long hours together to explore what was possible and what was impossible. It saw different strategies of making arise in the room as new material and methods collided together: for some this meant focusing on planning and absorbing knowledge, then doing; whilst for others it was the very interaction with the technology that led their ideas to develop through challenge or inspiration. Lessons were learnt by the project team, the technical experts and the artists that forced visions to be adapted through discovery that was, at different times, frustrating and exciting.

The place for reveals and revelations is in Brighton on 21 May and not on this blog. But, what we can tell you, is that over the course of these three days: fabric was lashed to bamboo and rubber to create structures that were built and discarded; paper was taped to walls and water was splashed in a child’s paddling pool to make projectable surfaces; a bicycle helmet was adapted to hold a 360 camera; and, cardboard boxes were used to reveal objects that were heavy with hidden stories. In the space artists continued the collaborative atmosphere of earlier sessions by assisting each other find the material that worked, whether that was pouring water or contorting in a motion capture suit.

Watching our artists and technical experts engage in this creative and collaborative process from the side lines leads to a sense of promise. In less than a month’s time there will be work that combines the sensory potential of circus and new technologies. Expect to see, hear, touch and feel.