CULTURE IN QUARANTINE: BBC
A masterclass for the BBC Culture In Quarantine series. Self-filmed in her south London studio, using paper, scissors, and glue, Es Devlin guides viewers through the process of turning ideas into forms, from broad research and initial sketches to physical projection-mapped sculpture.
‘The work is not so much an end in itself but a kind of recording process... the crumbs that you’re leaving to remind yourself later when you look back at this piece, who you were when you made it and how you’ve changed since you made it. ‘ Es Devlin.
Client: Es Devlin & BBC
Vocals: Jade Pybus
Production and composition: Polyphonia
STORYSCAPE: INSTAGRAM, CANNES LIONS.
STORYSCAPE; a projection-mapped meditation of 24hour evaporating storytelling created by Es Devlin.
The word story as in 'multi-storey' was originally used to identify levels of a building based on their position within the narratives of stained glass windows or carved stone friezes. The Etymology of the word story: in the 14th century, story meant 'truth' the results of an enquiry (from historian: 'to enquire' in Greek) By the 17th century, 'telling stories' could mean telling lies. A projection mapped cylinder of architectural facades works with this idea. Cited by Ad Week as 'the Most Powerful Thing You’ll See in Cannes' 2018.
Client: Instagram & Es Devlin
Vocal and Music Production : Jade Pybus & Andy Theakstone
Production: Res.lab
COLOUR CHOIR: PY
Colour Choir is an audio-visual installation from artist & musician Jade Pybus (Py), developed in creative partnership with, Ross Tones, Silent, and longtime Radiohead collaborator Andi Watson. Using a full spectrum of coloured light and 3D sound, this sensory experience explored the relationship between voice, colour and space.
Each night, Py performed live with every note and harmony of her voice visualised through 13 light sculptures placed around a railway arch, representing members of a choir. During the day the installation was open to the public. Visitors were able to interact with the installation and create their own arrangement of vocal harmonies, creating a choir of colour and sound, reinterpreting Py's story.
All music composed, produced and mapped to the space: Py and Throwing Snow.
Code and software: Andreas Müller
Production: Electric Theatre Collective and One House Studios.
Funded by Arts Council England.
MICROPHONE / MEGAPHONE: THE SERPENTINE PAVILION 2018
Microphone/ Megaphone; a collective choral poem installation, created by Es Devlin. To celebrate architect Frida Escobedo’s Serpentine Pavilion, a sound installation was created to compliment her subtle interplay of light, water and geometry.
The sound of every donated word was analysed in real-time based on pitch, duration and volume and in response, a unique choral sound response was heard. Each spoken word passes through a poetry-generating algorithm, trained on twenty-five million words of c19th poetry. From each word, the algorithm generates a two-line poem which is gathered into a cumulative choral work formed of human and machine-generated voices.
After five hours of collecting words from the public, the final audiovisual piece bursts into life, with vocal melodies soaring and building into an elaborate choir, immersing the audience in a forest of spatial sound and generative poetry.
Client: Es Devlin & The Serpentine
Vocals: Jade Pybus
Code: Manabu Shimada
Production: Res.lab
THE SINGING TREE: ES DEVLIN / V&A
Conceived specially for the V&A, ‘The Singing Tree’ will be brought to life via machine learning and thousands of words collected from the public.
Throughout the Christmas season, visitors were invited to contribute a word. Those words were transformed into an audio-visual carol, which illuminated the Christmas tree, accompanied by an interactive choir of human and synthesised voices.
Client: Es Devlin & The V&A
Vocals: Jade Pybus & Russel Morgan
Production: Res.lab
MASK: ES DEVLIN, SOMERSET HOUSE
MASK; A projection-mapped sculptural work by Es Devlin
A vocal-led composition brought the journey to life, emulating the sound of light. Referencing Escher’s work ‘Relativity’, the aim was to weave the vocal layers with bespoke foley recordings, blurring the line between voice and sound design.
An ovoid, mask-shaped concave form is sculpturally imprinted with dense urban geometry. A river divides the map like a mirror-distorted image of a human brain. A film is superimposed showing hands that peel at projected surfaces, mark up maps and mine through layers of paper, charcoal, clay, mirror, then wash their stains in ink until it clarifies to water. Rinse and repeat: the film plays on a loop: the layers excavated further with each revolution.
The work considers the range of scales of time and space that we simultaneously perceive and chose to remain blind to as we calibrate our position within the period that we now call the Anthropocene: when what we know about the environmental impact of each thing we touch will soon preclude us from touching anything in the same way again. The hands are six times ‘larger than life’, scaled to match the out-sized, face-like form, like the hands of a giant, trying to find or draw the eyes on its own blind mask. The city is viewed as remote aerial cartography: geometry extruded from earth by un-remembered generations of distant 1:1500 scale hands. The two scales are held together, un-reconciled in the work.
Client: Es Devlin & Somerset House
Vocals: Jade Pybus
Production: Res.lab
Where The Voice Exists : Jade Pybus
'Where The Voice Exists' was the first surround sound composition and performance installation from artist Jade Pybus.
The composition was created using a series of internal and external exercises to expose the voice in its extremities. Eight speakers and monitors where suspended in a circle at head height enclosing the audience in 360° sound and visuals for the duration of the performance.
The work investigates the relationship of the voice and space it is projected into. A conversation between numerous voices, including the genre specific, the internal, the external, the ethereal, the ugly voice and the beautiful. The notion of disguising and manipulating empowered by the need to discover and filter thoughts, much like the idea of consciousness and 'Thinking before you speak'. Explored through the appearance and disappearance of text, the recorded voice and its dialog with the live voice.
Influenced by the work and writings of Steven Connor 'Dumstruck: A history of Ventriloquism.