Senior Eden Weingart was selected to design a video to be played along with a live performance of Toru Takemitsu's Rocking Mirror Daybreak at AIGA Centennial Celebration of Music and Design at the New World Symphony in Miami, Florida. She describes her experience here.

This year marked the 100th anniversary of AIGA, and the organization celebrated with a variety of events across the country. AIGA Miami put on an event in collaboration with the New World Symphony to combine live music and motion design. They put out a call for motion and video designers to participate in a one-night event  where musicians would perform pieces live along with motion work shown at the Gehry-designed New World Symphony campus.

The call for work was brought to my attention by Dan Boyarski, who sent it out to several students from our Time Motion and Communication class from last year. I thought the idea of mixing motion with live music was interesting and decided to throw my hat in the ring. Based on previous work, the AIGA Miami board selected myself and five other video artists to create new pieces specifically for the event. 

I was assigned the first movement, 'Autumn', from Toru Takemitsu's piece Rocking Mirror Daybreak. The three minute violin duet piece is very experimental and abstract, a change of pace from the work I've done in the past. It was an interesting and compelling opportunity to revisit the rhythm project we did with Dan in Time Motion.

After repeat listenings and analyzing the Takemitsu piece, I thought that it would be interesting to play with light and shadow. The music is very fleeting, almost revealing something, and then retreating. I wanted my visuals to echo this mood and to emphasize the sense of mystery and intrigue that the piece conveys through movement. I decided to limit the palette to black and white to emphasize this theme, and in order to increase the contrast and impact on the large screen at the symphony

Thanks to Dan and Terry Irwin, last month I was able to take the trip to Miami, explore the city a bit, and see the event live. I met the AIGA organizers, fellow designers, and helped the musicians sync up their playing with my video. The performance went smoother than I had expected, with the two violinists syncing at key moments, and the white graphics lighting up the large dark symphony hall. It was very exciting to see something I had developed on my own shown at such a large scale and in front of an audience, and overall it was a great experience. 

You can find the video piece on its own below, as well as my recording of the live performance in Miami.

Rocking Mirror Daybreak from Eden Weingart on Vimeo.