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| From Panoctagon to Festival Henge |
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MIT's Artfinity Arts Festival February 2025 |
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| Consisting of 3 elements: The Panoctagon with 8 walls & 16 projections around a centered 4 screen Video Soapbox, at site 1, where the inital performance occurs. A dancing Parade with costumes and roving sound system leading to site 2, the Festival Henge, with 8 free-standing see-through LED Video Frames where the performance becomes a dance party into the night. |
| 1. The Panoctagon |
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| The Panoctagon with 8 walls & 16 projections around a centered Video Soapbox. Runs as an installation before and after the performance, from 5pm to 11pm. |
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| 8 films on the inside of the octagon depict the NYC OccupyWall Street protests from 2011/2012, accompanied by 8 speakers playing their soundtracks, comprised of the protest chants, noise making and the sounds of police interventions |
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| 8 films on the outside of the octagon depict other NYC protests from 2012 to 2021, including the Not My President, Climate Strike, March for our Lives and Black Lives Matter protests, also accompanied by 8 speakers playing their soundtracks. All 16 speakers playing simultaneously create a spatial cacophony, filling the space with the sounds of the protests and inviting the audience to get up close to any individual screen to hone in on its specific sounds. |
At the center of the octagon, sits the 4 sided Video Soap Box, with 4 screens below a platform, and speakers above each screen. 4 versions of the artist (see Fractured Selves project) narrate parts of their life stories simultaneously, competing with each other and with the 16 speakers of the video projections surrounding them, forming a cacophony of words and noises, centered on the individual and widening out to the community. Simiilarly the video content is individual in the center and community in the surrounds.
During the performance, the artist stands atop the Video Soap Box to orate. |
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The space is activated by performance when the artist, pulling a sound system cart playing dance music, enters the space with 8 people in festive costumes. The artist stands on the video soapbox and address the audience standing around the space (in the area surrounding the octagon and the mezzanie overlooking it). The 8 accompanying characters take their places by the milk creates that house the interior video projectors on the floor. |
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| he artist says short sentences or parts of sentences, that are then repeated by the others, creating a "human megaphone" as developed at Occupy Wall Street NYC. Eventyually the artist replaces this modality with an actual megaphone |
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| After finishing the spoken word element, the artist invites everyone, including the audience, to accompany them, forming a dancing Parade, to the second site where the Festival Henge is located. |
| 2. The Parade |
| They lead the group, pulling the sound system cart and dancing, out of the room. |
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| The artist and performing group and audience parade through the corridors and to the building housing the Festival Henge, dancing to the music from the sound system cart. |
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| As they approach the Festival Henge the 16 channel sound system there takes over and it turns from installation to dance party venue. |
| 3. The Festival Henge |
| Festival Henge with 8 free-standing Video Frames. Seeking artists to do live or pre-set audio and video works for the Festival Henge. |
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Each Video Frame is about 7 feet tall and 2 feet wide with pixels on both sides (so can have different content front and back).
It is high tech but super low resolution:
15 pixels wide and 60 pixels high
Combined, all 8 panels form 120 pixels wide and 60 pixels high, each for the front and the back. |
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| Below are some projects that will be featured in the Panoctagon set of 16 wall projections for reference. |
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Protest - BLM - NYC 2020 - video featuring the George Floyd BLM protest in NYC during CoVid19 lockdown: 5-30/20
6 minutes |
Protest - BLM - street intervention, NYC 6/19/2020 - Juneteenth - during CoVid19 lockdown
6 minutes |
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Protest - Queer Liberation March For Black Lives & Against Police Brutality - video featuring the NYC protest - 6/28/2020
15 minutes |
"Protest - Queer Liberation March For Black Lives & Against Police Brutality, 6/28/2020"
Award winning 5 minute version released in 2021 |
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