Q & A with Helen Shaddock in relation to THEMSELVES HERE TOGETHER at The Word

To coincide with my exhibition, THEMSELVES HERE TOGETHER, I was interviewed by Emma Ormiston at The Word about the audiovisual installation.

Read the Q and A here:

http://theworduk.org/q-a-with-helen-shaddock/

Mock up of audio visual installation

When I was editing the footage for THEMSELVES HERE TOGETHER, I made a mock up of the 5 screens (one of the walls is so wide that it has 2 projections) to visualise how the footage would work together as a whole. I wanted to create links between the visuals and manipulate the way the audience interacts with the space. Over the next few posts I will be showing some of the images of the mock up that I created to help me visualise the installation.

 

New test projections at The Word

When I last visited The Word a number of days ago to investigate the technological setup, I was shown how, without appropriate masking or shaping of the video, the projection would spill onto the floor and ceiling. I was able to obtain the template used to make photographs fit the screens, and have spent the past week trying to figure out how to apply the template to videos.

 

After a few attempts that were in the right direction, but not quite right, one of the technical team at The Word discovered a fairly straightforward method to follow using Photoshop. I followed his instructions using the templates for each wall and exported 5 versions of a test video, one each for walls 1, 2 and 3, and two videos for walls 4. He kindly tried projecting the test videos in the Story World space, and sent me these photographs to confirm that applying the templates to the videos had been successful. I will follow this method when exporting my final videos.

Testing projections at The Word

On Friday I visited The Word to do some technical research in preparation towards my forthcoming exhibition in the Story World area of The Word.

Story World is a white space with four slightly curved walls and four projectors that project onto each of the four walls to create an immersive environment.

I had prepared a number of videos and still images with different aspect ratios and wanted to establish which format would be the best for the room, and whether I would need to create masks in order to avoid any of the projections bleeding onto the wall or floor.

The image above was an animation made on clear 16mm film stock. The colours were not as vibrant as I had expected, possibly because the room is not totally dark. There was some bleed on the floor, and when the projection went to the ceiling, the projector shadow was visible.

I also noticed that the edges of the shapes in the animation did not seem as crisp as they appear on the original film, but this will be because of the amount that the image has been enlarged by.

The image below shows a projection of an animation that I made using the black 16mm film strip.

The image above shows a panoramic view of the 3 walls with the same projection on.

In these images, the projections with the hexagonal patterns have been applied with a template so that the top part of the wall is not projected on. This eliminates the shadow from the projector from being in sight. The other wall with the black film image still has the bleed on the floor, but the image goes all the way to the top of the wall.

These show the projection with the template applied reducing bleed to the ceiling and floor.

My mission now is to decide what I prefer and create an appropriate template for my footage prior to creating the video file to be projected. Wish me luck!

Site visit - Story World, The Word, South Shields

This morning anthropologist David Dupuis and I had a fascinating meeting with Richard Barber, Cultural Development Officer at South Tyneside Council and Mike Hamilton Strategic ICT Manager at The Word, National Centre for the written word in South Shields.

We are beginning to work on an audio-visual installation that will be exhibited at The Word in April 2018, and the meeting today was specifically to get access to the room where the installation will take place and get an idea of the facilities that can be used. This is no ordinary room, in the Story World space it is possible to create a 360 degree surround sound and visual experience.

Today we saw it being used to full effect with a group of school children. The students were really impressed, as were we!

The visuals can be projected on all walls in the rooms, helping to create the atmosphere of actually being in the environment depicted in the scene. For example, space imagery can be used to transport you into space! With 5 projectors, there are various possibilities in terms of screening photographs or static images alongside moving image, using all or a selection of the walls, repeating images around the space, having different images appear at different times on different walls and so forth.

The room has proven to be very popular with school groups who have been doing creative writing exercises in there. The pupils write as they sit in the projected landscape listening to sounds from that specific scene. Teachers have commented how much the quality of the student's writing has improved since using the Story World facilities.

I am excited and really pleased to be using the space in a less conventional way, and am ever so grateful to the staff at the Word who are ever so helpful and enthusiastic.

We have lift off and are venturing to the world of technology!

All began to come together this morning when Burnie, Steve and I installed the projector screen. It hangs, intentionally hovering just above the floor, moving slightly back and forth when people walk past. 

The next major milestone will be the installation of the projectors onto the walls at either side of the projection screen. The projectors will be mounted high up on the wall so that no one will walk in front of them and block out the light. The brackets have been made and the projectors attached. I've booked to use the cherry picker and organised some people to assist with what could well be a fiddly job.

I seem to be amassing a rather large collection of technical equipment and endless amounts of cables and extension cables. Let's just hope that there are no power cuts during the exhibition!     

 

This is the master...

and this is my own slave!

                                                                                                                                                         

Install of the projections commences

I have a rather complicated installation setup, with lots of cables and items of technology to take into account. 

In the room with the projections the ceiling is weak and so nothing can be hung from the ceiling. Therefore, I am needing to install a tension wire spanning the width of the room, and will then hang the projection screen from this wire.



The projectors need to be positioned diagonally and as far away from each other as possible in order to get the throw length required to make the footage on the projector life size, as intended. They will need to be upside down and secured on bespoke brackets that need to be made from metal. 

The 2 projections need to be synched, and this requires use of some specialist equipment called BrightSigns. I set up these today and tested whether they work as desired. They do!