Sun/airthe Nobel Prize winner’s latest work Elfriede Jelinektransformed that Graz Theater into the glittering interior of a spaceship with a futuristic video setup created by PIXERA – AV Stumpfl’s multi-award-winning media server system for real-time media processing, compositing and management.
Photo: Lex Karelly
Sun/Air, Jelinek’s new piece, depicts the remnants of humanity crowded together aboard a spaceship, monitored by a mysterious, omnipresent AI, as they look back on what once was Earth. In collaboration with the director Emre Akal and hip-hop inspired visual artists Mehmet & Kazim Jelinek creates an almost entirely digital sci-fi world that transcends the analog reality of the stage.
The play celebrated its Austrian premiere from October to March in the Schauspielhaus Graz, Austria’s second largest city, where the media technician Gerald Rotter relied on PIXERA to simplify Sun/Air’s complex AVL requirements and bring the oppressive dystopian future to life.
“Sun/Air was a project I was really looking forward to because it gave me a lot of room to experiment”he says, describing the challenges that the ambitious technical setup brought with it. “To create the cockpit of the spaceship, we combined front projection and multiple screens with a physical rotating stage and also separately projected video content onto the stage background. The projection mapping was a bit tricky and had to be redone for each performance as the setup was never 100% the same.”
Photo: Gerald Rotter
At the Schauspielhaus Graz, Rotter used PIXERA to create inputs and outputs (four each) in combination with Blackmagic video matrices (two Videohub 20×20), two Panasonic projectors (installed on light towers on both sides of the stage) and a grandMA2 lighting console steer. “We also used PIXERA’s Videohub software for routing”he adds, “plus Companion for easy routing of the video hubs, [Panasonic] Geometry Manager for setting up the projectors and the PIXERA control interface for controlling the projectors.Rotter highlights PIXERA’s Controls tab, which transforms the software into an easy-to-use, versatile show control platform, as his favorite PIXERA feature: “This function has made many things easier for me”he says.
For Sun/Air, Rotter made extensive use of PIXERA’s control functionality, as he explains: “First I focused entirely on compositing, and then the controls brought everything to life. PIXERA’s controls are brilliantly designed. For this show I was able to use anything I imagined. I created multiple timelines to simplify the workflow and also took control of the projectors and sound.”
Photo: Lex Karelly
Although he’s been using PIXERA for a while, Rotter adds that Sun/Air’s ease of use and intuitiveness proved particularly useful since he was working with a less experienced colleague. “I have a colleague who supports me who has never had anything to do with video programming or video servers before, but she quickly understood the system”he says.
While he also has the support of the Austrian PIXERA team OF Stumpfl praises (especially Harry GladowExecutive Director for PIXERA, as well as the account managers Benni Müller and Olli Kilian), for Rotter, the PIXERA system itself is the real star of the show. “PIXERA is a brilliant system full of fantastic features,” he concludes. “It literally makes my life easier.”
Info:
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www.avstumpfl.com
