ADVAITA in Maelstrom
ADVAITA in Maelstrom, Chronosphere | Chagall
Chagall is a Dutch singer, artist, performer, musician, and early adopter of the MI·MU Gloves. With her unique style of electronic music and performance, she has gained a lot of attention in the music world in a short period of time. Chagall has performed at major international festivals and has built her own fan base. She utilizes multimedia and technology to enhance her performances, creating an unforgettable experience for her audience. With her innovative approach, Chagall is an artist to watch out for!
In many electronic performances, the relationship between movement and sound has largely disappeared, along with the humanity and connection between the performer and the audience. In her ADVAITA project, Chagall uses new motion-capture technology such as the MI·MU Gloves and the Xsens suit as a controller. This brings back human expression in the performance of music and visuals. By being able to use intuitive body language and movement to play her music, she can freely move across the stage and make eye contact with the audience, without the barrier of a laptop screen.
The underlying premise in all of Chagall’s work is to create a meaningful connection between the musician and the audience, specifically to make the performance of electronic pop music more human, visually engaging, and immersive. For the track “In Maelstrom,” Chagall utilized Volumetric Capture.
Unfortunately, due to the COVID-19 pandemic, only one performance took place. As a result, there was a focus on technical research. During pre-production, it initially seemed challenging to find outfits that worked well on screen. The decision was made to experiment with clothing with lots of texture and loose hair to maintain the movement. These choices turned out to be very successful, as the movement of the clothing and hair added a sense of real-world physics to the volumetric recording.
In post-production, a lot was learned about editing multiple volumetric shots in sequence to generate visuals for the entire track. There was extensive testing and experimentation with simultaneously live and real-time control and manipulation of the volumetric images. Unfortunately, it was ultimately decided that at that time, real-time interaction with the volumetric recording during Chagall’s live show was not possible. As a solution, the scene was pre-edited, and reactive elements responded to the track in the volumetric based on the audio. With the availability of multiple post-production tools for editing volumetric images, such as 4Dfx software from 4Dviews, the outcome of this research might have been different in this day and age. And with the rapid developments happening in the field of live streaming volumetric images, we see real-time interaction as not impossible in the future.
ADVAITA In Maelstrom is a project by Chagall and Breda University of Applied Sciences.
Made possible by Rijksdienst voor Ondernemend Nederland, Metropool Regio Eindhoven, 4DR Studios and Effenaar.
