Mirada
A participatory installation of a holographic fire that blurs boundaries between audience and performance through unseen technologies. Mirada places four participants around a 3D projection of a graphical flame shown on a 360 degree display. The participants are each given one of four wooden abstract instruments embedded with wireless sensors that control parameters of a soundscape environment and visual characteristics of the fire in real-time seemingly by magic.
artist’s intent
I wanted the Mirada (meaning gaze in Spanish) project to allow participants to explore the creative potential of interactive technology through ludic performativity, while a storyteller offers narrative contextualization – this allows the user to playform directly with technology to affect serendipitous visual and acoustic feedback.
Fire, one of humanity’s first technologies is chosen as a central visual feature given its tribal tradition in collaborative meaning-making and cultural exchange.
The four instruments — touchboard, shaker, yoke and percussive tablet (drumboard) — were chosen for each panel of the central display trapezoid, because each is associated with a very different type of interaction: touch, shake, maneuver and hit respectively. I wanted to conveyed their use through shape, texture, colour, and weight to invoke haptic engagement that leaves space for the user to create their own meaning with the instrument and how it fits into the context of the installation.
the process.
the shows.
Mirada’s premiere show was hosted by Turkish storyteller, Ariel Balevi and the following year’s remounting for Nuit Blanche at the Hilton Toronto was hosted by indigenous elder, Duke Redbird in 2015.
Creative Direction - Maziar Ghaderi
Technical Direction - Jeremy Littler, Stephen Surlin
Performers - Ariel Balevi, Duke Redbird