Showcased at Ten Square Singapore (1 Short Street) as a part of the 2023 ART-ACT Festival, Box Body is a live interactive 3D performance of a giant inside a box on a curved billboard screen. It is made with an unique film-based production technique that can generate instantaneous anamorphic 3D visuals without the need for technical 3D modeling expertise. It is inspired by themes of urban isolation and systemic constriction.

During our four-month exchange in Singapore, we sensed that despite the country’s gleaming facade, many residents still often felt constricted, confined, and alienated by urban life. Visually inspired by Dimitris Papaioannou’s Transverse Orientation and by contortionist performance, we wanted to express the feeling of big-city isolation right above a busy thoroughfare. There emerged the ironic image of a person struggling to fit despite the massive scale of the box. Furthermore, we felt that this building—a unique car vending machine filled with rare and expensive vehicles—embodies the urban consumerism from which this alienation emerges. However, the work would not exist without the building. The installation is in dialogue with the space it inhabits, and together they illustrate a tension between the impressive human capacity to build, and the lonely consequences thereof. We challenged ourselves to abandon traditional CGI normally used for similar anamorphic video illusions. We instead filmed a scale-model of the screen with the camera placed at the viewing angle of a street-level passerby. Then, we used an external camera to capture the street view and stream that back to the person in the box. What emerged was a gorgeous picture that could be streamed live. If you were there, you could have waved at her, and she would have waved back. Using this production technique, we can bring any digital facade to life. Once the scale model is built, the camera is set, and the remapping is done – live illusions of depth on any dedicated curved screen require only that you place something in the scale model. This flattens production time for such footage, and makes jaw-dropping illusions accessible and easy to do for anyone without technical 3D expertise.

https://www.instagram.com/p/Co5YNGIjnHJ/

https://www.artactfestival.com/

Poster

Details

Team members : JJ Agcaoili, Xin Wen

Descriptions

Technical Concept : We challenged ourselves to abandon traditional CGI normally used for similar anamorphic video illusions. We instead filmed a scale-model of the screen with the camera placed at the viewing angle of a street-level passerby. Then, we used an external camera to capture the street view and stream that back to the person in the box. What emerged was a gorgeous picture that could be streamed live. If you were there, you could have waved at her, and she would have waved back. Using this production technique, we can bring any digital facade to life. Once the scale model is built, the camera is set, and the remapping is done – live illusions of depth on any dedicated curved screen require only that you place something in the scale model. This flattens production time for such footage, and makes jaw-dropping illusions accessible and easy to do for anyone without technical 3D expertise.

Visual Concept : During our four-month exchange in Singapore, we sensed that despite the country’s gleaming facade, many residents still often felt constricted, confined, and alienated by urban life. Visually inspired by Dimitris Papaioannou’s Transverse Orientation and by contortionist performance, we wanted to express the feeling of big-city isolation right above a busy thoroughfare. There emerged the ironic image of a person struggling to fit despite the massive scale of the box. Furthermore, we felt that this building—a unique car vending machine filled with rare and expensive vehicles—embodies the urban consumerism from which this alienation emerges. However, the work would not exist without the building. The installation is in dialogue with the space it inhabits, and together they illustrate a tension between the impressive human capacity to build, and the lonely consequences thereof.

Credits

JJ Agcaoili & Xin Wen

JJ Agcaoili & Xin Wen

JJ Agcaoili & Xin Wen

JJ Agcaoili & Xin Wen