I assisted Miranda Hardy (Lighting Designer) on Caleb Hammond’s original theater show 1000 Wolves at the Ontological-Hysteric Theater in New York. I also shot a dress rehearsal. Enjoy.

1000 Wolves runs through November 1. Tickets are only $17.

On a slightly different topic: today I thought up a binary classification of media (I mean media as in the plural of medium, meaning “a means or channel of communication or expression”, as defined by the OED). It is based on the number of senses that each medium demands from a consumer: one or several. Both categories are illustrated by 3 examples of media, and for each medium, the number of senses demanded is indicated:

• “Plurisensory” media:
  • Film (2 senses)
  • Theatre/installation art (2-5 senses)
  • Sex (5 senses)

• “Monosensory” media
  • Written text (1 sense)
  • Radio (1 sense)
  • Painting (1 sense)

Sensory involvement and immersion

The degree of immersion experienced by the consumer has no systematic relation to the number of senses a medium demands; instead, it is dependent of the form and content of the particular works: we all at times find ourselves helplessly involved in the narrative of a great work of written fiction, are led to completing with our imagination the fictional world only suggested by the limiting medium of language, while a piece of contemporary theater may fail to or choose not to suspend disbelief, though it employs the use of all our senses.

Multitasking

The concept of ‘multitasking’ interests me. Now equipped with an iPhone, I find myself drifting off from a televised debate, retreating to my smartphone to wikipedia the word “earmark”. Before I realized, I am browsing Depeche Mode’s discography, downloading a new app, while simultaneously listening to (and occasionally watching) the debate. Such multitasking is encouraged by the now-prevalent sophisticated mobile information devices.

It’s like having a portal to an additional dimension available whenever I feel the need to invoke a second (or third, or fourth) layer of experience to complement my experience of another medium, often dividing one or more of my senses amongst at least two competing media. I’ll be honest: I, and just as I imagine most of us, deal surprisingly well with processing simultaneously broadcast information in competing media.

However, even in cases where the two media’s sensory demands do not conflict, i.e. listening to NPR (hearing) while playing a video game on silent on my iPhone or Nintendo DS (sight, touch), the simultaneous experience of two different media definitely prevents my emotional and intellectual immersion in either, regardless of the attractiveness and quality of the content or form.

Either I choose to focus on one medium, in which case what I sense from the other medium becomes noise, or I choose to focus on both, in which case I function in both, but feel as if anesthetized, my thoughts and emotions curbed, and my experience of both media abstracted, further mediated. Neither medium suspends my disbelief, but I am not retreating into my own world, either. I am stuck in between, mildly mesmerized and powerless. It feels like a form of meditation, verging on the realm of the subliminal.

As a multitasker working in New York, that liminal experience has become a familiar part of daily life, and with exponentially increasing frequency. I don’t think most people recognize it as an abnormal, other-worldly state, because maybe there is something blissful about it.

Electronic media and attention-deficiency

I routinely read books that have more than a few hundred pages in a matter of days, and lengthy articles in the New Yorker from start to finish, but I would never even pay attention to online articles that take more than 15 minutes to read. I am impatient toward written forms in electronic media.

Electronic book-reading devices, like the ones Sony and Amazon have released, aim to bring the immersion for which paper books are loved to an electronic medium. The devices have gotten good reviews from serious readers, which is not surprising: the design of the display technology mimics paper in being high-resolution, non-backlit, non-flickering (unlike CRT displays), and the devices offer no distractions: all they do is display books and allow the user to purchase more books.

In a sense, the electronic readers of late can hardly be considered to be in the same category as the smartphones, which are all-powerful portals to limitless content and forms. I think it is the sudden portability of the digital forms that has overpowered us. The unprecedented success of the Apple App Store and the underlying fertility of the iPhone platform’s ecosystem (which may soon be matched by that of the open-source Android ecosystem) suggests the limitless applications of the new portable electronic medium.

It’s up to software designers, developers, and most importantly, users, to figure out where the technology fits in our lives, and how to make the experience rewarding, productive, and not consuming. We only have 5 senses, and one cluttered brain to process what they catch. The limits being tested now are perhaps our own.

After many months of labor, The monacoreps Annual ’08 was just released. It is an 80-page full-color showcase of the works of the 19 photographers represented by the agency. 10,000 copies have been printed and mailed to advertising agencies around the world. Oceanic Graphic Printing, which prints catalogs for the MoMA, printed the Annual. This is the first Annual that I have designed for monacoreps, and it’s also the biggest book design job I’ve done. It’s been a very valuable experience.

These are a few page and cover samples. All photographs are copyrights of the photographers.

I shot a rehearsal for Chicago-based National Headquarters’ new performance entitled Angelus Novus.

I designed lighting and shot photos for Chicago Fusion Theatre’s new production of bobrauschenbergamerica, directed by Jack Tamburri, at Gorilla Tango in Bucktown, Chicago.

I designed posters and postcards promoting Chicago Fusion Theatre’s upcoming production of Charles Mee’s bobrauschenbergamerica, directed by my friend Jack Tamburri, for which I am also designing lighting. The show will run September 4-28 at Gorilla Tango in Bucktown, Chicago.

After the Slip’n'Slide photos, I did a second publicity shoot for PS122’s Camp Summer Camp, titled Yearbook Photos. Performers and staff members posed in heavy makeup in front of an improvised blue drop. Conceived with Nick Bixby.

I did a publicity shoot for the upcoming production of Thomas Bradshaw’s Southern Promises at Performance Space 122, directed by Jose Zayas. The shoot was done in Jose’s backyard, lit using a few T3 halogen flood lights.

I shot Basic Assembly’s groundbreaking debut at the Chocolate Factory: Game On, a multi-media installation and performance.