Shifting Gaze - Rooted: An installation about Choice, Desire and Memory

Shifting Gaze - Rooted: An installation about Choice, Desire and Memory
LAIA CABRERA + ISABELLE DUVERGER with music by ERICA GLYN

This installation is site-specific. It combines video art, sound, animation and painting, and includes historical artifacts belonging to the collection of the Apple Tree House.

The installation includes a video art piece directed by Laia Cabrera which has been created over the years about choice, memory, and desire: a multiple portrait of women, and two paintings by Isabelle Duverger representing the two feelings of being connected and uprooted, which relate to the theme of the group exhibition: “Ward Mount: A Mother of Many Daughters.”

This group exhibition, curated by Lucy Rovetto, also includes works from exceptional women artists Nicole Demaio, Jaz Graf, Katelyn Halpern, Joanna Bellamy Jordan, Pat Lay, Tina Maneca, Jennifer Roberts, and Pauline Ward Mount.

Apple Tree House - Museum of Jersey City History October 1-20, 2024
Opening: Tuesday October 1, 2024, 1-5PM
Tuesday and every other Saturday and Sunday, 1-5pm
JCAST 2024: October 4-6, 2024 - Friday-Saturday: 5-9pm and Sunday: 5-7pm

"Shifting Gaze” Video Art, Film for cinematic presentation, 4K color, 20 min.

Shifting Gaze is a film-art-music installation about choice, desire and memory conceived and directed by Laia Cabrera (filmmaker and video artist) and created in collaboration with Erica Glyn (music, composer and singer) and Isabelle Duverger (animations). Shifting Gaze is a film about identity, about making choices, a memory in act. Drawing from the body, faces, urban patterns, nature and remains of activity, the piece explores a notion of choice, linked to desire and memory - choice being the present, memory representing the past and desire, the drive for a future. Underneath these mirrored imageries lie many stories about limits, freedom and self-perception.

“Rooted #1" and "Rooted #2" Paintings, Acrylic and Ink on Canvas, 14 x 14 in.

This diptych is named "Rooted - Bodies of Nature". They are gold and black paintings on canvas, portraying the desire of belonging by nature, freedom and limits.
The top panel (#1) is the experience of belonging, and the desire to leave that precious origin to become something else, while the bottom panel (#2) is disconnected, reaching out, expanding, to rejoin with that other who will give them a foundation. This journey, from one canvas to the other, is also a personal one, a conflict between the comfort of the origin, the connection to the past, and the desire to break apart, leave everything and start anew, finding a place of my own.

Perennial Land - The Data Forest, Hall of Fame Gallery, CUNY-BCC & Treehouse NDSM

Immersive Video and Sound Installation conceived and Directed by Laia Cabrera & Isabelle Duverger
Original music composition by Nana Simopoulos
Cinematography, Editing and Visual Effects by Laia Cabrera & Isabelle Duverger
Additional Visual Effects by Caryn Heilman - Spacial Sound Design by Ander Agudo

"Perennial Land" is an experiential installation focused on Climate Justice that immerses us into the beauty of Earth's landscapes and awakens us to the importance of data-driven insights into our impact on nature.

Perennial Land - The Data Forest is an experiential installation that combines the beauty of various forest environments with the importance of data-driven insights into a human's impact on nature. Stepping into a space transformed into a multi-climate forest, tech and tools about resources and equity are seamlessly integrated into the environment like trees. We want to push aside the modern habit of thinking of nature–culture divide, decolonize technology and highlight the ways landscape contributes to social, political and psychic ideas of space. The vulnerability of the environment is directly related to that of certain communities. Nature does not need us. We need nature.

Perennial Land - The Data Forest is part of the Care and Climate Justice exhibitions series at Sarah Lawrence College and Bronx Community College with the support of the Mellon Foundation.

"Gathering is an ethic at the heart of Laia Cabrera and Isabelle Duverger’s looped video installation, Perennial Land: The Data Forest (2024), which invites its audiences into a restful, contemplative, and immersive space, surrounded on three sides by lush images of Earth’s forest environments. These images are interspersed with climate data and scenes of human-planetary relations gone awry, the visual grammar of the Anthropocene. Cabrera and Duverger specialize in public, interactive video works that break down the “uni-directionality” of artistic communication, so that audience members are positioned more as creative collaborators than an inert “audience.”18 Even as Perennial Land serves harsh reminders of anthropogenic destruction, it also summons hope for other ways of being. Over-stating human destruction can reinforce an ideological binary of nature/culture and obscure long histories of reciprocal care on this planet; Perennial Land, on the contrary, both hails and builds a community invested in responsible co-existence." — Introduction: Care and Climate Justice by Sarah Hamill and Izzy Lockhart, Care and Climage Justice Catalogue, 2024


Care and Climate Justice is a series of exhibitions that take place at Sarah Lawrence College and Bronx Community College in winter and spring 2024. The exhibitions are funded by a grant from the Mellon Foundation, which supports the Sarah Lawrence Interdisciplinary Collaborative on the Environment (SLICE). Against the urgency and presentism suggested by “climate crisis,” these exhibitions turn to responses that might be considered careful and slow, and that shed light on the long histories of environmental devastation on this continent shaped by settler colonialism and racial capitalism. As both an ethic and aesthetic, care takes the form of grief and remembrance, of attention and refusal, of adaptation and kinship, and of expansive imagination and storytelling in anticipation and prefiguration of other futures.

Hall of Fame Art Gallery at Bronx Community College
Curated by Patricia Cazorla
2155 University Avenue, Bronx, New York 10453
March 21, 2024 - May 16, 2024

March 26: Care and Climate Justice Artists’ Roundtable - Heimbold Visual Arts Center
May 2: Perennial Land - Artist Talk - Hall of Fame Gallery, Bliss Hall, CUNY-BCC

Treehouse NDSM Art Park II: Voice of Nature
TT. Neveritaweb 57, 1033 WB Amsterdam, the Nederlands
September 12 - October 6, 2024 - Thursday to Sunday, 13h - 18h

Art Park II: Voice of Nature is a group show that continues a series we initiated in 2023, which focuses on urban nature in relation to the Municipality of Amsterdam’s project of establishing a park in the NDSM area. The specific theme of this year's exhibition, Voice of Nature, delves into the concept of granting rights to more-than-humans. Could we listen to what nature, including plants, birds and insects need? Can nature be granted the same rights as humans? In an era marked by environmental crises and biodiversity loss, the 14 artists participating in this exhibition attempt, through different approaches, to reframe our thoughts and interactions with the natural world and advocate for its value. This exhibition is made possible by the contribution of Amsterdamse Fonds voor de Kunst. ‍

Dream-e-scape at the Film Criticism Conference, Riyadh, KSA

Film Criticism Conference - "Beyond the Frame" - Nov 8-15, 2023 - The Cultural Palace, DQ, Riyadh, KSA

Artist Talk: From Moving Images to Immersive Cinema - November 10, 2023 - 7:30pm - The Cultural Palace, DQ, Riyadh, KSA

Conceived and Directed by Laia Cabrera & Isabelle Duverger
Interactive Design by Aniol Saurina Masó and Jianhao Ma
Original music composition by Nana Simopoulos
Cinematography and Editing by Laia Cabrera & Isabelle Duverger

"Dream-e-scape" is an interactive projection art installation about lucid dreams, created by filmmaker Laia Cabrera and multimedia artist Isabelle Duverger, in collaboration with interactive designer Aniol Saurina Masó and Jianhao Ma, and composer and instrumentalist Nana Simopoulos.

The piece is an immersive and interactive 360º installation about the mind and the search for awareness in which the public experiences a sensory voyage that captures the surreal nature of dreams, where the line is blurred between the physical and the digital world, between the real and the imaginary.

“Dream-e-scape” is based on the state of sleep, an imaginary journey one can experience with the eyes wide open. The piece explores the concept of lucid dreaming, the sleep state in which we become aware we are dreaming and have the ability to control the dream and gain agency over our thoughts and desires. We are testing reality: Are we awake?

We wanted to play with the surreal nature of dreams and explore concepts and ideas related to our notion of a digital self in a collective environment. Being awake, conscious… agency. The installation uses the language of escape rooms to explore the dreamworld, opening doors to mirrored landscapes, waterfalls, a Daliesque world or hidden pathways, creating connection between allegories of tales, micro and macro, nature, body, mind and universe, all connected by chance and sometimes astonishing clarity. Dreams are the starting point of the imagination. The original score takes you to interactive soundscapes created specifically for the piece.

Using cutting-edge multimedia technology to produce creative environments, through mapping, infinite space, augmented reality, interactivity, video art, music and animation, the audience is invited to actively participate as actors and not just as mere spectators. The video installation art becomes a theatrical stage where things appear, move across, and then disappear, where awareness becomes attention and action, and your brain fantasizes your conscious reality. Original music uses textures, pads, pulses and drum rhythms to move the audience through the space and at times influence the music by their physical movement.

Conceived as a seamless projection mapping design with full gesture responsive interactivity, “Dream-e-escape” invites the audience to actively enter the heart of the piece creating and choosing dreamlands that unfold across a series of immersive interactive scenarios, capturing the surreal nature of dreams and giving the audience agency. Dream-e-scape plays as a fictional dimension, whose terrain of forests, cities, galaxies, mountains, and an underworld can be visited only through a process of thinking creatively, Lucid dreaming.








OTHER VENUES
Flutter Art Gallery - 2022-2023 - Los Angeles
Microwave Media Arts Festival - Oct 28, 2022 - Nov 6, 2022 - Hong Kong City Hall

AWARDS: #Hybrid Vision - Panasonic Digital Art Competition 2022 - Interactive Digital Art Nominee

QUALIA - You Matter to Me, 2023

An Immersive Cinematic Art Installation directed by Laia Cabrera & Isabelle Duverger
Music and Sound design by Nana Simopoulos and Erica Glyn | Performing artist: Catherine Correa

Qualia: the properties of experience, and experiences, referred to as being phenomenally conscious

"Qualia" is an immersive video and sound installation about our longing for connection to nature,
through consciousness, awareness, and agency.

Presented at: 

Jersey City Theater Center October 13-15, 2023
as part of JCAST 2023 and Prelude Festival 2023 - Segal Center CUNY
October 13 6-9pm, the 14th & 15th 12-6pm

165 Newark Avenue (entrance on Barrow), Jersey City, NJ

 

Sant Jordi USA Festival, April 25, 2024, Out of the Box Theatrics, New York 

Women Heavy Group Exhibition, Gardenship, Kearny, NJ - May 18-July 27, 2024, curated by Donna Kessinger

Newark Arts Festival 2024 - Newark ArtSpace, 355 Broad Street, Newark, NJ - October 10-December 1, 2024

“Qualia” is a sensory voyage where the line is blurred between the physical and the digital world, between the real and the imaginary. The gaze is a visual poem, gravitational Qualia: anxiety shaped into Surrealism, mythology, a nightmare turned fantasy, spontaneous solidarity, feelings of solitude, suspension, an embrace, the beginning of a smile, a hand falling and rising again, time and the fates.

Conceived as an immersive projection mapping design using cinematographic language and interactive dramaturgy, “Qualia” explores concepts of mental states, symbolism, and hope, creating a story that unfolds across a series of immersive scenarios drawing from the body, faces, urban patterns, nature and remains of activity. Underneath these mirrored imageries lie many stories about limits, freedom and self-perception.

An ordinary tableau becomes a dreamscape, the brain is an airport, a train rail. The mind is a magician, the body is the self, giving audience an alternative experience where they are no longer passive spectators and actively enter the very heart of the piece where ‘universal time’ continues to exist in parallel with an inner perception of time — a back door — intimately associated with our sense of personal identity and unshakable condition that the future is still open to our chosen actions.

The brain is an alchemist where memories are the bedrock of consciousness.

The piece uses choreographic language, fragmentation, bioart, color, motion, music, drama, humor, light and darkness to confound expectations, dream-like scenes and symbolic images, flattening space through animation and abstraction, or heightening the illusion of three dimensions.

The immersive experience - environmental video sculpture - is designed as a large wall with white canvases spread across, seemingly in random positions creating video spaces. Using the concept of ideasthesia, a bridge that metaphorically links rational abstractions, we open a dialogue between the different film streams - within the canvases and throughout the wall - with an original music score and sound design, extending the installation in time and space.

With the support of the Individual Artist Fellowship program provided by the Jersey City Arts Council and the Jersey City Arts & Culture Trust Fund, and the Jersey City Theater Center. Produced by Laia Cabrera & Co.

Projection Design and Mapping for Lachi's "Lift Me Up" music video

"Lift Me Up" is a tribute to late disability rights activist Judy Heumann, aimed at spotlighting
high-quality accessible art and Disability within a pop culture narrative. 

Lachi: RAMPD Records: www.rampd.org
Executive Producer: Lachi Music LLC www.lachimusic.com
Music Production: Lachi and Michael Herrick
Mixing/Mastering: The Pear Entertainment
Video Directors: Catriona Rubenis-Stevens and Day Al-Mohamed
Co Stars: Nell Russell, Otis Jones and Amber Galloway, Ali Stroker

Producers: Arthur Gwynne, Catriona Rubenis-Stevens, Lachi Music Music
Performers: Gaelynn Lea, James Ian, Lachi Music
ASL Performers: Amber Galloway, Aurnell Russell, Otis Jones
Audio Description Narrator: Ali Stroker
Director of Photography: Caroline Mariko Stucky
1st Assistant Camera: Eric Richardson
Editor: Jake Primmerman
Director of Artistic ASL: Amber Galloway
Projection Design: Laia Cabrera & Isabelle Duverger (Laia Cabrera & Co.)
Production Designer: JD Caesar
Special thanks to: RAMPD, Gymnopedie, Quad Studios
Audio Descriptions Sponsored by Google, maker of Lookout
ASL Sponsored by Amber G Productions
Sponsored by Google, maker of Live Caption and Live Transcribe

  

Projection Design and Artwork for "Allerleirauh, The Musical" by Angela Masi and by Dillon Feldman, 2023​

    

   

A compassionate and witty take on the classic Grimm fairytale, Allerleirauh is the story of a genius architect who is forced to flee her homeland to protect her blind daughter. Disguised as beggars, they find work in the kitchens of a neighboring castle. With the help of a grumpy cook, a vegetarian king and an outrageous cast of characters, The Builder finds within herself the strength to face the cost of her mistakes and become the mother and queen she was always meant to be.

Directed by Catriona Stevens
Projection design and artwork by Laia Cabrera and Isabelle Duverger
Light design by Matt Steinberg - Choreography by Michael Scannelli
Cast: Adam Barr, Camber Carpenter, Paul Gary, Jeffrey Grover, Zoila N. Pinto, Sean Quigley, Yasmin Ranz-Lind, Chase Wolfe, Claire E. Dempsey, Shari Gill, Veronica Depauli, Sofia Ales
Band: Natasha Gonzalez music direction; Blair Hamrick, Katya Barmotina, Alice Levine, Vince Novellino, Dave D’aranjo, Andy Buslovich, Emma Reinhart, Steve Plesnarski

March 10-11, 2023 - Alvin Ailey Dance Theater - 405 W 55th St, New York, NY

Welcome to Sloomooverse - Web-AR Interactive Experience

Created by Laia Cabrera and Isabelle Duverger
Development by Marcos Boero - Devenred
3D by Jordan Gantier and Lucas Ordoñez

Sloomoo Institute, 475 Broadway, SoHo, New York, NY 10013, Starting September 22, 2022
November 2022 in Chicago, Atlanta, December 2023 in Houston and September 2024 in Los Angeles.

Sloomooverse is an interactive web-AR experience. Sloomoo is entering your real world environment (SLAM), and spreading mini-sloomoo in their path. When detecting a sloomooverse (image targets), Sloomoo enters a 3D world which is VR or AR based, where they can interact in different way, swimming their way through an underwater mysterious world of treasures, jumping on the moon surrounded by a magical sky and planets, become an 8bit version of themselves, and poping on tap, in a very 80s videogamish way, enter a psychedelic world where giant mushrooms grow and Sloomoo dances under a kaleidoscopic sky and floor, or enjoys a rain of french fries.
The web-AR contains therefore six experiences in one, and because it is a web-Based AR experience, people don't need to download anything to start experiencing it.
As an added feature, the experience can be photographed or recorded.