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DETAILS [spotlight]
Pics: Louise Stickland
MANCHESTER MASSIVE! Massive Attack V Adam Curtis was the brain- child of film maker and journalist Adam Curtis and Massive Attack’s Robert ‘3D’ Del Naja, an ambitious sound and visual art installation that utilised video projection and lighting to the full.
The work was commissioned by the Man- chester International Festival (MIF), where the production premiered, with the Ruhrtri- ennale International Festival of the Arts and The Armouries in New York also commission- ing shows later in the year. A huge atmospheric layer was added by Mas- sive Attack’s gritty, bass-tastic underlining grooves and Liz Frazer’s haunting, uneasy vocals - something only a ‘live’ band and set could bring to the equation.
The production design concept of 270° vid- eo projection with the band behind screens at one end and audience in the middle, was originated by London-based United Visual
Artists (UVA). UVA modelled all three venues and calculated the projector positions using an on-board visualisation programme on a d3 Technologies media server. The visuals were directed by Icarus Wilson-Wright (who, in a prior life, was a percussionist in Manchester ‘90s indie band New Fast Automatic Daffodils). The full size set up consisted of eleven 10x9m gauze screens in 4:3 format, stretched floor to ceiling, four down each side of the space and three across the ‘top’, covering the stage, with the band positioned behind. These were fed by twelve Barco HDF-W26 projectors fitted (in Duisburg) with .67 lenses supplied by XL Video. The lighting design was headed by Tim Oli- ver who has overseen several Massive Attack art projects in the past as well as working with Liz Fraser last year.
Lighting was used to reinforce the drama
and atmosphere of the piece, revealing the band at strategic moments but always complementing the images onscreen while also reminding viewers that it’s a live per- formance. Martin Professional MAC 2K XBs were sta- tioned behind the side screens and upstage of the band gauzes onstage. Lighting the band behind their screens were Martin Pro- fessional MAC Performances for band keys and additional rear light on the screens, complemented with Robe Robin MMX Wash- Beams for back lighting the band and the gauzes, bringing a layer of additional depth to the visual picture. All the lighting was supplied by rental company HSL.
www.uva.com
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