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07
Jun 10SULPICIA MEA VOX
PAGE CONTENT (TOC)
On this page you will find the following information about Opie's performance Sulpicia Mea Vox using the Real Time Live Cinema technique:
- TITLE
- DESCRIPTION
- CV
- VISUAL DOCUMENTATION
- CONTACT INFORMATION
TITLE
Sulpicia Mea Vox in Real Time Live Cinema (RTLC)
DESCRIPTION
(see below for Real Time Cinema technique)
Using Real Time Live Cinema (RTLC), Sulpicia Mea Vox resuscitates the dormant verses of ancient Roman poet Sulpicia, the only extant female poet from Roman antiquity.
VJ Opie creates a convoluted world of segmented bodies mixed in with ubiquitous hunters and airplanes invaded by Sulpicia's text, a bizarre universe rescuing Roman exuberance.
The three performers surrender their bodies to the driving emotions of images and sound. But the surrendered quickly come into power through improvisation to take control of the scene. The dialectic movement of the bodies against technology sets the rhythm of the performance, never even, never settled, but always a struggle--to survive just like Sulpicia's verses.
RTLCÂ SUMMARY
VJ Opie created the concept of RTLC (Real Time Live Cinema) a hybrid between cinema and theater.  In RTLC the  director/video performer proposes scenes and triggers events for actors/performers to react and interact with them in front of a green screen.  The video performer chroma keys the actors/performers and outputs the result onto the main screen, producing the RTLC movie.  Electronic musicians and an orchestra play live at the performance.  All performers are supposed to improvise.
RTLCÂ DETAILED EXPLANATION
VJ Opie created the concept of RTLC (Real Time Live Cinema) a hybrid between cinema and theater.
RTLC mixes a prearranged series of video sequences with the chroma keyed images of actors as they perform.  The result of this mix is the RTLC movie.
The RTLC theater space is preferably rectangular and divided into two distinctive areas by means of light and darkness.  The director works at the level of the dividing line.  The space in front of the director is dark.  The projection screen and the public are in this space.  The space behind the director is light.  This is where the actors are.  The camera or cameras are placed immediately behind the director aimed at the actors and pointing away from the director. The actors perform with a green screen in the background.
The RTLC theater, then, has a screen on each end of the longest axis of the rectangle, a white screen where the RTLC is projected and a green screen in the background of the actors.
There should not be any material dividers between the light and dark spaces, such as walls or screens, impeding the actors to look at themselves in the RTLC movie as they act nor the public from turning back to look at the actors as they perform with the green screen in the background.
The RTLC director should work with a video performance software with chroma keying capabilities such as Modul8. The director should loosely or tightly prepare a sequence of video scenes to be projected as well as events to be triggered as actors are chroma keyed onto the sequences. For instance, the director proposes a scene of a forest; the actors enter the scene and start acting; the director triggers an event such as a butterfly flying over; the actors react to the butterfly consequently.
In the original version of RTLC, actors should improvise their performances and be unaware of the sequences that the director will propose.  This aspect of RTLC, however, should be flexible and accept rehearsed movies since they by no means violate the primary idea of RTLC.
Musicians provide the only sound of the RTLC movie as there are no dialogs nor voice in the original version of RTLC.
In the original version of RTLC, two distinct groups of musicians play improvised music. One electronic music musician playing behind the director, in the left corner of the theater, next to the actors, and a group of live musicians playing diverse instruments in the front, to the right of the projection screen, kitty cornered to the electronic musicians. The live musicians are the only non-mediatized performers the public faces.
In what follows, I would like to state some techniques that I would like to explore in future performances:
The use of subtitles or captions in the way silent movies used to do.
The use of effects on actors, primarily mirror effects. Â This could be supplemented also with the use of twins, creating disorienting effects between reality and effects.
Using one camera per actor, being therefore able to isolate them and changing light sets on different actors.
CV
VJ Opie is a performance and video artist based in Paris, France.
Opie Boero Imwinkelried's work explores language and technology with a focus on the ancient Roman and Greek worlds in connection with contemporary society.
Opie created the concept of RTLC (Real Time Live Cinema) a hybrid of cinema and theater based on chroma keying techniques and live improvisation.  Opie also works with a range of computer technologies applied to live performances including augmented reality and motion tracking.
Opie has shown video works at several international venues including theEuropean Media Art Festival (EMAF), Clermont-Ferrand Videoformes, British Film Institute’s London Lesbian & Gay Film Festival, and NewFest 2008: The New York Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, & Transgender Film Festival.
Opie's video art career started in Argentina in the 90's and continued at the renown Media Study Department at the State University of New York at Buffalo.
Opie's video performance trajectory started in the late 90s, performing with self-authored Flash movies. Back then, Opie performed at several venues, mostly in the United States, including Hallwalls Contemporary Arts Center, Squeaky Wheel Buffalo Media Resources, and scholarly conferences such as Pacific Rim Classical Studies Conference.
More recently, Opie has been performing in Paris at clubs such as the Opa,Batofar, Yono, and 4 Elements as well as at art houses such as La Société de Curiosités and more recently featured at the Apple Store Louvre and the Nuit Blanche, Paris.
Opie's art video site http://imwinkel.org and teaching site for Ecole Nationale d'Architecture La Villette http://lavillette.wordpress.com
YouTube http://www.youtube.com/vjopie
Twitter http://twitter.com/vjopie
Vimeo http://vimeo.com/vjopie
Facebook http://www.facebook.com/imwinkel#!/pages/VJ-Opie/194656176999?ref=sgm
UStream http://www.ustream.tv/channel/vj-opie
Flickr http://www.flickr.com/photos/orosiatete
Blip.fm http://blip.fm/Imwinkelried
Wordpress.com http://vjopie.wordpress.com
VISUAL DOCUMENTATION
Real Time Live Cinema photos on Flickr
Demo May 6, 2010
More videos at http://www.youtube.com/vjopie
CONACT INFORMATION
vjopie [at] gmail [dot] com
Opie Boero Imwinkelried Google Search
