One of the external RAID arrays I use to backup my past work to had a hard drive failure the day after Christmas. That kind of failure is not so unusual as I keep making the mistake of using consumer-grade hard drives and they just fail faster and more predictably when used in this kind of set-up. As per the usual, I bought an identical drive and replaced the faulty one with it. In the past, this has been the end of my worries. To clarify, I don’t worry about the hard drives butfor the work that’s on them.
This time, however, a second hard drive failed while the RAID’s brain was rebuilding the previously lost data on failed drive number one. In certain configurations even this would have been fine, but not in my case.
Since that realization I have been thinking concurrently about whether my backup strategy works, where I have backups of the backups, and whether I should even keep some of that stuff anyway and why. My partner, you see, has been reading and acting upon The Life-Changing Magic of Tidying Up. Do the collected files of this show spark joy? No? Well, then they should just go.
Also, it’s the end of another year, the 15th of my working with imagery, media and projection in live performance and the start of another one. Time for some reflection, or rather, some accumulated reflections. I tend to look for patterns, causal connections and presumably related events in my thinking until it becomes too much for my mind to contain, and then I spit it out not entirely sure whether any of it actually makes sense. ButI believe in the oral or written expression of thoughts as clearly as possible, so the ensuing discussion hopefully verifies whether anything holds up to scrutiny. In any case, a healthy discourse is better than locked away thoughts.
Two years ago a former student of the Integrated Media program at UT Austin asked me this well-worn question, and this year I have been thinking a lot about the answer I gave back then:
Q: Where do you see the future of theatrical projection design heading in the next several years and beyond?
A:”I expect there to be an abundance of projection and imagery to be used in the theater. It has become cheaper and more affordable and will continue to do so. That means there will be a deluge of productions using this kind of technology. The designers and artists who can create a unique style or technique that is successful will help to shape a field of work that is more deliberate in its choices and sophisticated with the execution of ideas. In the meantime, there will be a visual onslaught which is just necessary to get through. The audience and viewers will be responsible for deciding what works for them and, in turn, will shape opinions of producers and directors. As the audiences become more discerning because of what they have been exposed to thediscipline will become a universally recognized vocation. Theater has always reflected on contemporary circumstances, the Zeitgeist and the world outside its walls. The way we communicate now and are exposed to communication is quintessentially and overwhelmingly visual. So is the speed at which information travels. As a consequence, we will see more and more imagery and technology enter the theater. Lighting and projection will merge when required, but there are so many ways in which imagery and projections can be utilized. As we become more experienced and educated about its use, the lines between scenery, lighting and projection overall will become very blurry indeed. Specialist disciplines and jobs will emerge for interactive technology and sophisticated technological environments.”
Two years later I am leading and building an MFA program that focuses on just that and the name of the program is about as descriptive as I can be in five words ”Integrated Media for Live Performance”. As a consequence, my ongoing quest and that of my students are how to successfully integrate media and to research what makes that endeavor successful.
Both as a professional designer and as the leader of an MFA program I have come to realize that the crux lies with the “successful” criteria. I can teach my assistants or students the technical skills, but the questions that remain are, “How do we measure the success of a design” and “Who should judge the success of a design”?
Perhaps controversially, “Who’s judgment matters more than somebody else’s?“
For me these questions lead back to two core queries about artistry:
Q1: Why do I create?
Q2: Why do I express myself in the way that I do?
A1: I can’t help myself ever since I discovered that it’s what I naturally want to do.
A2: I enjoy leading the minds and imagination of the audience with just enough information so they see a path in a narrative but not so much information that they know exactly what they are looking at without thinking for themselves. I think this is an engaging and respectful way to treat the audience which ultimately makes the experience enjoyable.
The latter answer is a criterion I use to judge the success of my own design work. Perhaps this is a very personal point of view from which to judge, but I always develop a vision for what the work should be and subsequently I strive to get as close to that goal as possible. Then others are more than welcome to pass judgment.
I do not have an encyclopedic knowledge of theater design history or theater semiotics - I am constantly exploring new ways to use the technology I considerto be my tools in a waythat furthers the way we can tell stories to audiences or visually express ideas in a live environment. As such I am more of a researcher than a scholar. With personal research and work produced as attempts to prod and explore not only some failed attempts, misunderstood work, overlooked contributions, but also great revelations. An overlooked contribution to a show, however, could still be work I consider a success. For example, I view my work for Disney’s The Little Mermaid Musical a success even though most people did not notice any projection in that show whatsoever. But that was also one of the design goals - it was supposed to look like light play under water (and it did).
Of course, it’s great to have your work recognized, and for work to be recognized (re-)viewers have to be aware of it. That can be a problem when your ultimate goal is to integrate your contribution into other disciplines (lighting, scenery) as much as possible in service of the production.
Frequently It’s entirely my call to decide what will be the most successful way to integrate projection into a production: That also means I control how recognizable the projection design will be to non-specialists - as projection is light it can mimic to some extent what lighting instruments can do, equally LED screens and high definition, high brightness projections can look like scenery. Depending on the design choices I make I also open myself up to contributing a design component that many people will not recognize as different from lighting or scenery. However, that is and should be a conscious choice.
Sometimes I have been asked or been in situations (including this year on “Svadba”) where the design choice is to go largely unrecognized, and thus the whole design approach for the projection design is called into question. This avenue of inquiry implies either that what I can do with my tools could be replicated by other means or that it makes no difference to the audience’s experience if my work is there or not.
I view this as a fundamental misunderstanding not just about the purpose of projection design but also the contribution of any design discipline to a show’s overall look and feel and how it functions to support the direction of a given production.
As an example, a beautiful custom proscenium can look like it’s always been part of a theater, yet it has been designed only for a particular production. It may have been very expensive to build. Then it usually does not take long for somebody looking at this from the outside (maybe a producer interested in touring the show) to ask where all the set budget has been spentbecause it's intended to not be an obvious design choice.Additionally, many reviewers will overlook the set designer’s choice to completely transform the space and focus on what is instantly visibly different from the last show they have seen in the same space.
So these questions go back largely to monetary considerationsthat have little to do with artistic success. In this hypothetical scenic design, it's easy to imagine how removing the custom portal would obviously and drastically change the intent and integrity of the overall scenic design. In other words, a well-integrated design component may only be recognizable a the contribution of a specific designer on a specific show if it is taken away.
I remember a day during technical rehearsal on “the little mermaid “ where we had major signal issues and had to turn the projectors off. All the organically moving underwater shapes were gone and it was quite noticeable. While financial consideration naturally drive some decisions in the commercial theatre this is also true for shows on smaller budgets. I had my work cut from a little opera that hardly had any set, but was mostly supported by lighting and projection - only that the projections were not immediately visible as such because they were intentionally well intentionally into the set and lighting design. Color temperatures were matched between lighting instruments and projected light and all projected shapes aligned carefully with the minimalist set architecture.
I felt this particular design (for Svadba) was largely successful in mimicking the look of lighting yet contributing something to the visual composition and sculpting of the space that lighting instruments inherently could not provide. That is of course why I chose that particular approach together with my collaborators. In a way, the cutting of the projection element after the initial production of the tour is a testament to the design’s success, because it was coupled with the request to the lighting designer to relight the show. If only it was that easy I would not bother doing what I do.
I am optimistic that more designers will look beyond recognition of their work as projection to define their success. The alternative is currently more common and examples of intrusive, self-ware, ostentatious, sometimes distracting or simply badly executed work is too numerous to mention, but I sort of predicted that, and thus do not view it negatively, but rather as part of a process a new profession with new tools has to grow through.
A lot of the work that is quite obviously projection or projected garners attention and sometimes even recognition, but a lot of work that in my view is artistically successful remains unnoticed. This in itself is not negative, but as currently overwhelmingly work that is clearly declared and perceived as projection is accepted as a candidate for success and recognition we as designers still have a lot of work to produce that shows otherwise.
I do stress the work as do not believe that writing essays will sway a critic, a producer or the audience to reevaluate how to look at certain designer's contribution. What I do believe and I have experienced this to be true is that good work can recognize on a good show whereas it may be overlooked on a bad show. The overall experience colors how we judge a collaborative effort even if there are outstanding contributions. Give that projection design is a new design discipline it will take good work, good shows and time to built a frame of reference for people to judge what it is they are looking at. Theatre being a collaborative art form, it also takes producers and artistic collaborators to trust in the abilities and ideas of the lesser understood design disciplines (I am still counting sound design here even after all those years) and support them when necessary.
My hope is that eventually being intrusive, ostentatious or distracting will become carefully chosen design choices that form part of a very faceted and well-understood set of terms associated with good projection design and thus bring recognition to this exciting profession.
For this to happen it is important to avoid conflating recognition and commercial success with artistic success. That is not to say these three cannot co-exist, but they are assessed differently.
I have found the backups of backups by the way, and I'm keeping all the work. Not because much of it sparks joy, but because sometimes shows are revived, toured or otherwise remounted and the only copy of the process that created the artwork is digital. Just now I am starting to revisit a show originally designed in 2009. A lot has changed since then in terms of technology and the tools that I use, but change of attitude toward and recognition of projection design has been slower.
To partly quote Garrison Keillor: Be well and do good work.
Happy New Year