Group assignment with: Christina Tang, Fay Cai

Hyper Orange is a mixed media video installation.

Our conversations about a ‘speculative future’ led to the notion of loss — of [land objects history experiences language food feelings] that future generations will not have access to, or will only have access to in mediated formats.

Discussions led to using an orange as the subject. It was first brought up in contrast to some large-scale / system wide topics, like history and social media, which we found difficult to narrow into specific narrative ideas. In contrast, an orange is a natural, organic, physical object that is common and pervasive, and thus felt personal and relatable. We also found the color fun and charismatic.

We arrived at the format of the installation through

A. a deep interest in contrasting the ‘real’ with the ‘unreal’ / ‘seemingly more real’ (Fay at one point made a great tag line: Better Than Real!). All of our backgrounds and interests united as many facets of this topic.

B. experimenting with live-compositing. My background includes a basic knowledge of Isadora / video design for theater, so it was faster for me to mock up in Izzy than in Aftereffects — therefore we responded to the physical element of seeing the images composited and projected in addition to the content. We experimented with several different devices and surfaces in collage before deciding on this setup.

Projector 1: The Orange

• This was shot on a Canon 5D using a macro lens and edited with extra red to combat the greenish hue of the projector.
• In Isadora, a circular mask was applied to remove the background as much as possible without making a hard line on the sphere.

Projector 2: Orange Grid

• Videos were shot in a converted phone booth on the ITP floor.
• For class presentation, grid was composited from individual videos live using Isadora. Below is an edited and re-exported video.

https://youtu.be/vjV6ZeWvp2g?feature=shared

Class presentation - mixed media video installation