BEING INSPIRED AT THE LIGHTNING FACTORY

ROSS PHILLIPS: MIRROR MIRROR

One of the really cool things about LYNfabrikken, the office hotel in Aarhus where I reside, is that they use a lot of energy bringing interesting creatives to the cafe to give lectures or to the exhibition room “BOX”.

I feel that it is a luxury to be surrounded with so many talented people and although a lot of them work on projects completely different from mine, I still get tremendously inspired by their presence. Be it hearing how other creative souls charge an assignment, or them showing a personal project which they are deeply moved about.

Tonight once again I have left the LYNfabrikken cafe feeling uplifted. Two young guys, Ross Phillips and Vincent Morisset, with a common field of interest, had flown in from two different countries to give a talk. The interest being exploring interactive video, where the narrative works together with the input of the spectator. They both had a great deal of amazing projects under their belts, and I could go on and on about both of them, but I have chosen my favorite project from each, to show you here.

But do your self a favour and pop by their websites and check out their work, it is amazing. If you are sad that you missed the talk, you will shortly be able to find the videos made during these talks here. I am already exited about the upcoming december talk!

We start with Ross Phillips
His Mirror Mirror installation in TOPSHOP went on for 3 days time. Topshop had a giant mirror for customers to pose in front wearing their desired item. In the other end of London a person sitting at SHOWstudio, the base where Ross works from, would comment on what the costumer was wearing. The commenters were not ordinary people – the costumers could get comments from people such as Nicola Formichetti, the famous stylist for Lady Gaga and head of Thierry Mugler and Holly Shackleton former ID magazine editor. For the entire 3 days they had people commenting one hour each. The technology behind the mirror was a camera filming the customers so the commentators could see who was in front of them and they would type their comments which then would be shown in the mirror using led lighting.

 

 

Next in line we have Vincent Morisset
He has done a lot of great collaborations with the band Arcade Fire. The one I love best is the video for Sprawl 2. When watching the video on your laptop the camera allows you to make the people in the video move in dance like motions. All you have to do is wave your arms and watch what happens. I really like the whole look of the video, the colors, the styling and the weirdness. The choreographer had quite a challenge because the video had to look good even though no one played with the interactive possibilities. So a lot of effort was put in to making the dancers do body movements that would give a some what dramatic feel. The clothes worn by the lady singer also had a big part in this dramatic look for it was important that it would look interesting during the movements. Have a look for your self: Go to this great website and choose to interact.