Photo by Antoine Taveneaux / CC-BY-SA-3.0
Visitors in Los Angeles were in for a colorful treat this past week, when historical and cultural landmark Walt Disney Concert Hall debuted their project WDCH Dreams, a 12-minute dazzling media “performance” that featured projection-mapping and sophisticated machine learning technology.
A collaboration by digital media artist Refik Anadol and the LA Philharmonic Orchestra, the ambitious project was part of the 100th anniversary of the orchestra. Using data sets to cast a stunning light show onto the building’s metal exterior, Dreams consists of abstract representations of photos, video, and other media from the LA Phil archives. The installation is celebrates how art and technology preserve cultural memories and defy temporal boundaries.
Anadol is a guest lecturer in the Program Creating for Mixed Reality, while contributor to the project is machine intelligence researcher and instructor Parag K. Mital, who teaches courses for the Creative Applications of Deep Learning with TensorFlow Program. Mital worked on the generative images and sound for the display. Sound designers Robert Thomas and Kerim Kauglu created the soundtrack that complemented the visualizations, which were meant to channel the center’s collection of audio recordings and the rich cultural history associated with it.
WDCH Dreams ran from September 28 to October 6.
You can learn more about mixed reality and machine learning by joining the courses below:
Creative Applications of Deep Learning with TensorFlow
Kadenze Academy
Creating and Capturing Mixed Reality
Pacific Northwest College of Art