Paul Miller, aka media artist DJ Spooky, showcased his latest project to about 200 people in attendance Friday, Oct. 3, in the Ogle Center. The performance, “Terra Nova: Sinfonia Antarctica,” mixed electronic music with video footage Miller filmed while he was on the continent.
This was a follow-up to his Oct. 2 lecture “Rhythm of Science,” which analyzed how to make a multimedia presentation.
“I wanted people to be looking at ice through sound,” Miller said. “It’s a place at the end of the world, a blank place on the map. It was beautiful.”
He was in Antarctica for four weeks, collecting footage and ideas for the project. He said he has worked on the project for the past two years. After putting it all together, the performance lasts for about an hour.
The icy video footage took up most of the first act, but the second act consisted mainly of 3-D images. He took 3-D models of the surface and zoomed in and around it, skimming the virtual surface.
There were also some statistical graphs used concerning the sea level and melting ice. This led some people to believe the performance’s theme focused on the effects of global warming.
Karyssa Goss, biology freshman, said she thought it was a political statement.
“Global warming is a real concern,” she said. “I heard this was more entertaining than the Al Gore movie though.”
Most of the graphs were bar or line graphs, presented in 3-D.
Katelyn Wilkinson, English sophomore, said Miller focused too much on political undertones.
“It didn’t focus on the right thing,” she said. “I was expecting more shots of the continent since it’s called ‘Sinfonia Antarctica.’ He could’ve just gotten to the point and shown more of Antarctica.”
Wilkinson also said the graphs went off screen too fast, so she couldn’t see what they showed anyway.
Yorgl Douramacos, 29, drove from Anderson, Ind., to see the performance. He said it was important to have an underlying political theme.
“Work has to have a subject, otherwise it’s just splatter,” he said. “Even if it is about global warming, the artist has to make some kind of connection with the audience. Otherwise, it’s just a waste of time.”
Douramacos also said he saw one of Miller’s performances two years ago called “Birth of a Nation,” which had racial undertones. He said the theme of that performance was much more pointed.
One unique aspect of this performance was the use of side-by-side screens. Both of the screens showed the same images, but the left screen showed them backward while the right one showed the normal images.
This created a mirror effect. If the right screen showed a dot on the right side, the left screen showed it on the left side.
There was only one small dividing line between the two screens. Douramacos said this was one of the most important parts of the show.
“I kept my eye on that point of convergence,” he said. “There’s action happening everywhere else, but it’s that blank spot that means something. It all comes together there and DJ Spooky knew that.”
While some people liked the mirror effect, others did not. Goss said it made her dizzy and she felt like she was on a roller coaster. She said she stopped looking at the left screen after a few minutes.
Miller said it wasn’t difficult to turn the images backward, but it was hard to make the effect look good.
“In digital media, you have to remix and change things all the time,” he said. “Editing takes a lot of time and energy. It takes longer to mix video with music rather than just mixing music alone.”
He also said this isn’t the final product. This performance was one of the latest editions.
Miller said he hopes to have the final product finished in three months for its world premiere in Melbourne, Australia.
He said he thought he had chosen a cool theme.
“There are only about 2000 people in Antarctica,” Miller said. “And I think there weren’t any DJs there either.”
By JOSEPH DEVER
Staff Writer
jwdever@ius.edu
