Strange Attractions — Still 01 — 2019-08-23
 

Strange Attractions at Singapore Night Festival
23–31 August 2019

Hi All,

I am thrilled to announce the world premiere of a long-in-development body of work, Strange Attractions. The first two manifestations of the work will be shown during the Singapore Night Festival 2019, 23–31 August.

First, I am silly-excited to be collaborating with the Ding Yi Music Company, a Singapore-based Chinese music ensemble, for six live performances at the festival. The ensemble will be playing two pieces and their percussionist will be improvising a third piece. I will be creating live, unique visuals for each performance, based on my Strange Attractions work. We will be performing in a hemispherical geodesic dome, with 180° projections, at 7:45 p.m. and 8:30 p.m., on 29, 30, and 31 August.

During the performances, the chaotic systems will change in reaction to the performers’ music and through my live interactions with custom software. Being chaotic, Strange Attractions also will work variations of its own, ensuring no two performances will be the same.

Also as part of the festival, I have created a 3-minute animation which will be shown as part of Project:Dome, a nightly, 20-minute program of full-dome projection works. Works are being screened continuously in the dome, 7:30 p.m. to midnight, each night of the festival, 23–31 August.

Both series of events take place in the dome on the SMU Campus Green, in Singapore’s Bras Basah cultural district (see the links below for specific location).

‌About Strange Attractions

Strange Attractions is an ongoing body of work, spanning thirty years, utilizing a set of original strange attractor formulas. Based to the mathematics of chaos theory, I am using chaotic strange attractors to explore natural systems, patterns, and rhythms. Images of these evolving chaotic systems are layered, one moment over next, like waves washing over sand, eventually replaced by the accumulation of those that come after.

Visuals are created using custom software that I have developed. These tools have been through many incarnations over the years, with the current, live-performance tool created using C++ and OpenFrameworks, an open-source toolkit for creative coding. Audio signal processing and physical controller interfacing is facilitated using Cycling ’74’s Max8 and Derivative’s TouchDesigner. Concurrently, I have established workflows in both Python and SideFX’s Houdini.

Acknowledgements

This artwork was first presented at the Singapore Night Festival 2019, through a commission from the National Heritage Board. Deep thanks to the Singapore Night Festival, National Heritage Board, and the National Museum of Singapore for the opportunity to publicly premier this work.

Special thanks to the staff at the Swisher Theater at Jacksonville University for testing and rehearsal space.

Much more to come…

Watch this site and my social media accounts for more information about Strange Attractions in the coming days, weeks, and months…