Veiled Reflection: An Immersive and Interactive Installation creates a colorful and rhythmic New Media Art space by combining algorithm art, visual music, and fabric art, each enriching one another with layers of symbolism.
To enjoy the installation, the audience must immerse themselves in the artwork and actively co-create an experience that is uniquely theirs. As the audience steps into the all-sensory ritual space, their shadows and mirror images merge with and complete the visual element. Meanwhile, their bodies stir up unpredictable air movements that delicately shift the arrangement of the translucent draping screen, the Veil. This serendipitously changes the imagery projected on it. In this installation, the observing and observed merge, which is an essence of healing and mystic ruptures since time immemorial.
While reflection and light, integral elements of the installation, are almost synonymous with deep thoughts and wisdom in many languages, the Veil is also laden with symbolism in the Islamic and Western mystic traditions. The installation’s algorithmic and dynamic visual music bounces off the ethereal Veil and engulfs the audience. This effect ignites in them a drive and yearning to perceive with perfect clarity but keep it intriguingly out of reach.
The longing for sense-making and meaning finding is the cornerstone of countless human pursuits, ranging from science and mathematics to mystic transcendence, in all of which the installation artist has received impeccable pedigree. However, despite the heights reached by the wise and moments of intimate rapture experienced by many, the mathematical theory of everything and the collective unity with the divine often remain elusively out of reach as we plow through the mundane day-to-day life. This limitation as human beings is the symbolism of the Veil, and the struggles between clarity and obscurity form the paths of rigorous training found in mystic traditions from all over the world.
Through its visual music, the Veiled Reflection installation is also a potent invitation for the audience to create space for their need for personal meaning finding. At the same time, it compassionately acknowledges and provides the tools for the audience to work through the challenges. Its visual music pieces combine cutting-edge electronic sounds, algorithm-driven computer graphics, and meticulously hand-created visual art by artists classically trained and world-renowned in these disciplines. Starting with a spoken word piece that addresses the struggles currently miring humanity and ending with a chant for universal enlightenment, these pieces directly speak to our yearning to find sanity and healing as individuals and society. This longing may ring with particular urgency as we are bombarded with issues from all over the world in the current era of immediate global communication.
Selected Screening & Awards:
- SIY Gallery Solo Exhibition, San Francisco CA
- Sacred Futurism: Wonzinmer Gallery Screening, Los Angeles CA
Process & Technology:
The sample output of the algorithms developed by Rebecca D. Nie without audio-driven input and filters at different time snippets. (a) and (b) are outputs of a fractal algorithm, and (c) and (d) are the outputs of a trigonometric algorithm.
The audiovisual creative process of Veiled Reflection spans years. Through frequent communication between the artists, ideas are inspired, developed, reflected, and built upon. The final piece was realized through many iterations of such workflow. The media arts technologies, computer music and graphics, and sacred art and architecture at Tongdosa Monastery and Stanford Memorial Church contribute to the creative chain.
The artists leveraged controlled randomness and materializing human-designed algorithms to produce the visual music outcome inconceivable before the immersive and interactive installation. Arguably, the computer and technology extend the artists’ abilities in reasoning and envisioning, thus playing an essential role in building the expressive power of the piece.
The real-time processed visuals and hand-crafted paintings are inspired by life’s complexity and our human experiences. This section will detail the immersive and interactive installation’s mathematics, data flow, and system architecture.
Algorithms A series of GLSL algorithms were developed specifically for the visual music pieces in this installation. It is computationally intensive to combine the deep fractal algorithms, live audio processing, and multilayers of audio-driven filters at 30 frames per second and output the results into 5760 by 1080-pixel videos. Therefore, our creative process showcases the power of parallel computing at the GPU level powered by the GLSL programming language and Magic Music Visuals, a commercial live performance software.
For example, Z.M. Nie developed fractal mathematics and trigonometry algorithms to visually depict the evolutionary yet repetitive process of life in the state of Saṃsara. The rhythmic expressions of the cyclic nature of life and beyond are essential concepts of spiritual and philosophical traditions from South Asia.
Postprocessing and Installation Through Magic Music Visuals’s built-in Fast Fourier Analyzer, the audio spectrum and frequencies are extracted from the music composition. The audio data drives different parameters in the custom-designed algorithms and built-in visual filters to dynamically alter and blend all the visual elements to digitally create dynamic visual art that reflects the piece’s conceptual depth and musical narrative as detailed in the visual music’s statements.
Surprising yet powerful multimedia expressions emerge from this process of designed serendipity that can influence even the overall color palette of the dynamic visuals in ways that astonish and delight the artists themselves. These frames of computer-assisted Deliberate Accidental Art underscore the power of audiovisual collaborations and artificial intelligence.
The result of the algorithm-driven dynamic visuals created through Magic Music Visuals is then outputted into raw video footage for the artist to edit and render in professional software according to the project’s guiding concept and the electroacoustic music composition. The subsequent iteration of video art is then mapped onto the immersive New Media Art space surrounded by the Veil.
The installation introduces another critical layer of Deliberate Accidental Art by harnessing the three-dimensionalities of the projection surface. For example, the translucent optical properties of the Veil and its interactions with the audience added complexity that the artist must intentionally consider in the visual composition and color choice of all the imageries.
Lead Artists:
Z.M. Rebecca Nie is the Buddhist Chaplain at Stanford. She is also a Stanford alum, Zen Master of the Korean Jogye Order, and an established Californian visual artist. As an heir of one of the oldest living mystic orders, she creates to artistically invite the audience into Zen encounters that are direct experiences of the transcendental. The inspiration for Z.M. Nie’s art comes from her introspection, global adventures, and attainment in diverse disciplines.
Dr. Wu is an award-winning scholar, musician, and audio engineer. She has 10 years of diversified work experience in music and media technology companies such as Universal Music Group, EMI, and Shazam. She holds a Master of Arts degree from Stanford University and a Ph.D. degree from the University of California Santa Barbara. Her research focuses on how music technology can augment the healing power of music. Her music has been performed in Asia, the U.S., Canada, Australia, South Africa, Brazil, and Europe. Currently, Dr. Wu is an assistant professor at the University of Colorado’s College of Arts and Media. She is the chairperson of the Diversity & Inclusion Committees at both Audio Engineering Society (AES) and Colorado MahlerFest. She also serves as a voting member of the Recording Academy and the Editor-in-Chief of the Society for Electro-Acoustic Music in the US (SEAMUS).
Karlton E. Hester, Ph.D. (composer/flutist/saxophonist), began his career as a composer and recording artist in Los Angeles where he worked as a studio musician and music educator. He received his Ph.D. in composition from the City University of New York Graduate Center and is currently Director of “Jazz” Studies (and member of the Digital Arts and New Media faculty) at the University of California in Santa Cruz. As performer on both flute and saxophone, he is founding music director of the Fillmore Jazz Preservation Big Band (in San Francisco), director of Hesterian Musicism, and served as the Herbert Gussman Director of Jazz Studies at Cornell University from 1991-2001. Hester specializes in premeditated, spontaneous and electro-acoustic composition. His compositions span a wide range; from numerous solo cycles for various woodwinds to chamber configurations, music videos and electro-acoustic symphonic works written in an eclectic array of styles.
Bonnie Kwong is a poet, musician, multidisciplinary artist, engineer, and mother of two children. Her first book of poetry, ravel, was a finalist for prizes by White Pine Press and New Rivers Press. Her dance, music, and poetry performance Liriope was staged at Stanford University’s Jasper Ridge Biological Preserve with Chris Chafe as music director. Her play “There’s No Stopping to My Thoughts” was staged at the Oakland Asian Cultural Center with a grant from the California Arts Council (CAC).