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Environmental Graphic Design: at Sydney Opera House, real-time visual technology will meet modernist architecture March 20

Visual Design by Obscura Digital. Rendering of Exterior Projections Western Sails, Sydney Opera House
SYDNEY, AUSTRALIA /PRNewswire/ — Experiential technology leader Obscura Digital will fuse live experiential technology with a masterpiece of modernist architecture on the evening of March 20, 2011. Obscura Digital will transform the dynamic Sydney Opera House structure into a visual augmentation of a live symphonic performance and amplify the artistry of the YouTube Symphony Orchestra event with real-time audio-reactive graphic projections that will simultaneously canvas the interior and exterior of the iconic building with parallel projection shows.
“If we achieve what we are trying to do, we will be creating musically expressive architecture,” explained Travis Threlkel, Founder and Chief Creative Officer of Obscura Digital, which is based in San Francisco. “We will enable audiences to experience the Sydney Opera House in a new light by using optical illusions that make it appear to be moving and accentuating itself based on what is taking place with the live performance inside the concert hall, essentially allowing the building to become a living, breathing artistic representation of the music.”
Obscura Digital will be supporting YouTube Symphony Orchestra 2011 by designing and deploying sophisticated multiple vantage point projections to create a transparent architectural experience for the live event. Obscura Digital’s team of creatives, technologists, and strategists conceptualized and designed an interactive visual performance component to the music so audiences can be exposed to a show of light and sound from all angles.
They will wrap the interior of the concert hall with immersive art projections, making the visual art content dynamic and responsive to the music. Beamed from a half-a-mile away onto the façade of the Western Sails, Obscura Digital will integrate live camera feeds from the concert hall with stylized treatments and live digital painting components. This complex array of interactive graphic effects from the exterior will then be brought back into the Concert Hall of the Sydney Opera House.
Over ten years of Obscura Digital’s technology innovations will culminate in this two-hour show. They have designed their own novel configuration, a more musically precise projection media, with custom interfaces, controls, and software systems that will enable them to respond to the nuance of the musical performance directed by world-class conductor Michael Tilson Thomas.
YouTube Symphony Orchestra 2011 will be live-streamed at: www.youtube.com/symphony
The performance will take place at: Sydney Opera House, Sunday, March 20, 2011 from 8pm–10:30pm, and will be visible on the Western Sails from Dawes Point.
Judith Rubin
Judith Rubin
Judith Rubin ([email protected]) is a leading journalist, publicist, strategist, blogger, content marketing specialist and connector in the international attractions industry. She excels at writing about all aspects of design and technical design, production and project management. Areas of special interest include AV integration and show control, lighting design and acoustics, specialty cinema, digital video and world’s fairs. Judith has ties to numerous industry organizations. From 2005-2020 she ran communications, publications and social media for the Themed Entertainment Association (TEA). In 2013, she was honored with the TEA Service Award. She was development director of IMERSA, and co-chair of the 2014 IMERSA Summit. She was publicist for the Large Format Cinema Association in the 1990s, now part of the Giant Screen Cinema Association (GSCA) and has also contributed to the publications of PLASA, IAAPA and the International Planetarium Society. Already making her mark as a magazine and book editor, Judith joined World’s Fair magazine in 1987, which introduced her to the attractions industry. Launching as a freelancer in the mid 1990s she has contributed to dozens of publications and media outlets including Funworld, Lighting&Sound America, Sound & Communications, Urban Land, The Raconteur and The Planetarian. She joined InPark in 2010. Judith earned a Bachelor of Fine Arts from Pratt Institute. She has lived in New York City and the San Francisco Bay Area, and now makes her home in Saint Louis, where she is active in the local arts and theater community.

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