Improvised Projection Assemblies was a collaborative and unscripted performance project that brought together drawing, painting, bodily movement, found objects, electroacoustic sound, cameras and overlapping live feed projections. Images posted here are primarily screenshots from the video documentation of the performance.
Derek Brueckner initiated the project and established the conditions for the performance, while each collaborator brought their own ways of working to the process. Elham Shokri and Ashkan Nejad Ebrahimi developed an unrehearsed physical performance involving movement, painting and the body; Gage Salnikowski improvised with electroacoustic violin; Abtahi Hassan manipulated two of the five live feed projections through Isadora, manipulating the opacity, colour temperature and overlapping of the live feed video projections; and Mike Lau operated and repositioned cameras transmitting live feed video, while also entering the performance through shadow work with Ashkan and Brueckner.
Frankie May arrived during the final twenty minutes with an air pump and paddle. Although Brueckner had invited him to participate, they had not discussed what he would do beforehand, and his entrance changed the relationships already developing among the performers, objects and projected imagery. Audience members also entered briefly to operate two pulley circles incorporated into the installation.
Brueckner worked primarily at a document camera, producing live projected imagery with drawings, paintings, found objects and lighting, while also making brief physical interventions within the central performance area.
Throughout the performance, bodies, painted surfaces, objects and shadows were recorded by cameras and projected back into the same environment. Different views of the same action overlapped at different scales while the physical action proceeded. The work developed through the relationship between preparation and unpredictability, and through decisions made by the collaborators during the performance.
Gage Salnikowski
Gage Salnikowski improvised with violin as part of an electroacoustic sound setup that included a banjo used as a resonator rather than as a played instrument. The violin and banjo were connected by a small coiled cable, with equipment associated with the banjo’s drumhead capturing frequencies beyond the range of human hearing. These frequencies were processed electronically and brought into the audible sound produced through Gage’s laptop, electronic controls and sound system. During the performance, Gage moved between playing the violin and adjusting the computer and electronic equipment, developing the sound in response to the other performers and imagery in the live feed projections.
Before the performance, Gage also invited people around his sound station, showing them his equipment and explaining aspects of how the electroacoustic setup worked.
