Yellowman of the Forest is a four channel video work in 4.2 surround sound conceived by A Taylor Kuffner (Zemi17) with video editing and animation, and technical networking by Jeanne Angel.
The piece was started in the spring of 2003 and shelved for a long time, and then restarted in spring of 2007. It was Performed at Monkeytown in Williamsburg Brooklyn in December 2007 and January 2008.
Abstract:
The Yellowman stands in the forest in a timeless hourglass, a paradox of change and stillness, a string of moments with subjective causality. He is the dance of time, the dance of falling, and the dance of not moving. This is a piece about time, memory and the unknown.
Technical Description:
7 cameras were placed in the forest in a 150 ft diameter circle facing inward with the tape rolling. A movement artist, influenced by the Butoh tradition, with a gestural movement language dances throughout the field of the cameras.
The recorded footage is synced together and an algorithm is applied to take the 7 points of view and distribute them rotating between 4 reels. Each reel is sent to computers that are networked to stream 4 congruently edited video signals to be projected independently by 4 video projectors facing outward to the 4 cardinal positions. The audio is composed live from presorted samples taken from field recordings during the video shooting and from reprocessing the live signal from the camera microphones. The sound is split into 4 independent channels placed in a diamond to the projections square with 2 center bass points making a 4.2 surround sound environment.
Crew:
Concept and Audio: Zemi17
Original footage: A. Taylor Kuffner with thanks for equipment from Luxz, Evelyna Dann, Disney Nasa Borg, Leili Gueranfar, Kathi von Koerber, Emiko Shinozaki, and Christine Howard
Video Editing, Technical networking, Storyline development: Jeanne Angel
Yellowman played by A. Taylor Kuffner
