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.

Close-Up / Primer Pla immersive video and sound installation

Directed by Laia Cabrera in collaboration with Isabelle Duverger

Conceived and created by Laia Cabrera & Isabelle Duverger
Original music by Nana Simopoulos and Enrique Granados
Cinematography and Editing by Laia Cabrera & Isabelle Duverger

"In a world in which one is tempted to forget or ignore too much, the reconquest of our collective past should be among our first projects for our future.” Umberto Eco
Close-Up/Primer Pla: An Immersive Cinematic Art Installation is a poem to Catalan landscape and architecture, a visual tone poem that uncovers new parallels between identifiable motifs of the land and the built environment, between nature and art. The tale it weaves navigates between gentle familiar territory and sudden, revelatory estrangement, spanning both distant memory and nostalgia for what is yet to come.
Conceived as a visual narrative memoir, looking back and looking forward, a filmic poem of future nostalgia and selective memory. Capturing the instant, going back to the origin, a memory in act. The piece departs from three major themes for the visual storytelling: Place + People + Values.
Unveiling a sensorial “viatge” as a “spiral”, we created an oneiric journey merging and juxtaposing the essence of these thematic concepts as a triptych video installation. With a cinematic style, using mathematic patterns in nature like spiral, fractals, voronoi, the symbolic tradition of Castells, the textures and shapes of modern architectural landscapes of Catalunya; a visual storytelling materializing thoughts, allegories, scenic metaphors and imaginary skylines. Our focus was also on the rituals of togetherness and solidarity, images of embrace and openness of a community.
The gaze is on the details, the poetry, the beauty of the senses and the longing for an inclusive and sustainable future. A path forward – unveiled through collective traditions and multiculturalism.

Presented at:
Delegation of the Government of Catalonia to the United States, Washington DC, September 14, 2021
White Space Gallery Chelsea - New York, NY - November 15-16, 2021
Coral Gables Museum, Miamia, FL - November 17, 2021
Sant Jordi USA festival - Jersey City Theater Center, NJ - April 21-24, 2022
The Dumbo Loft - Brooklyn, NY - September 20, 2022

Commissioned by the Delegation of the Government of Catalonia to the United States. Presented with the support of Office of Turism of Catalonia and Prodeca Produced by Laia Cabrera & Co.

“The Now”, the largest interactive art installation of its kind, presented at PABT

The now:
The Now, created by talented filmmakers and video artists Laia Cabrera and Isabelle Duverger through videoart, animation, video mapping and interactivity, in collaboration with interactivity artists NoirFlux and Karan Parikh, is the first featured art presentation at Coolture Impact and the largest interactive public art installation (72 feet long - 22m.) on the windows of the Port Authority Bus Terminal in Times Square.
The now offers a journey into magical worlds, intertwining reality and fantasy, opening doors to hidden places and participatory environments. The Now explores transitory spaces and unseen parallel realities, in a cinematic voyage to visually striking realms, live painting, and animated characters with evolving narratives. Visitors are invited to walk, move and unravel the different storylines.

Artist Statement:
"In this peculiar place of transit, where people come and go in a rush, we wanted to create a piece that would allow them to stop, explore and travel to different magical, poetic and imaginary places, and while interacting with the piece, allow the audience to interact with each other, be in the present.
As a result, we tried to allow new technology to be as accessible as possible. This installation is unique and was created specifically with a combination of complex technologies, but with the desire of making it as seamless and approachable to anyone who interacts with it.
As we created the piece, we thought of where it was presented, and of course, being a transportation hub, we though of transporting people to imaginary world, opening doors of a Subway, an Electric Bus and a 1920’s train who wouldn't breath out smoke but butterflies, our personal winks to Climate Change and our concern about it.
We hope you will find the time to see it, it is intended as to be as immersive and imaginative as possible, surrounded by all the flat screens of Times Square, and an attempt to contribute with public art in a over-saturated place of advertising." — Laia Cabrera & Isabelle Duverger

More infos: laiacabreraco.com/thenow
October 25, 2018 to February 7, 2019 (Running 24/7)
At Coolture Impact - Port Authority Bus Terminal (Outdoor on the South West Corner of 42nd Street with 8th Avenue, New York, NY)

FEATURED ARTISTS / LAIA CABRERA AND ISABELLE DUVERGER
Visual design and art installation created by awarded creative team LAIA CABRERA & Co, founded by Spanish filmmaker and video artist Laia Cabrera and French animator and projection mapping artist Isabelle Duverger.
Searching for new ways of using the space and visual imaginary as a tool for narrative storytelling and audience connection, driven by both scenographic and dramaturgical aspect and creating immersive content experiences in contemporary artwork.
@laiacabreraco @isabelleduverger

FEATURED INTERACTIVITY / NOIRFLUX AND KARAN PARIKH
Co-founded by Interaction artists Lorne Covington and Bill Saiff, working as NOIRFLUX, create responsive environments that provide immersive exploration, expression, and education. Through innovation in multi-person gestural interfaces, advanced spatial sensing, and physical, augmented, and virtual reality techniques, they create participatory experiences that effortlessly extend visitors' capabilities and senses. @noirfluxarts
Karan Parikh, an immersive experience developer. His core areas of focus are mixed reality, interaction design, spatial AR, adaptive and binaural audio. @karan_immersive

ABOUT COOLTURE IMPACT
At the edge of new digital frontiers, Coolture Impact is an incubator that explores and exploits new technologies, art content and social interaction. It creates a new paradigm in storytelling, where digital art is activated by, and exposed to, a large audience. Viewers are invited to experience and interact with art in a personal and exciting way to become an intrinsic part of the soulful artworks of our talented, featured artists.

"Trojan Women" - Multimedia Theater at JCTC, November 2018

Jersey City Theater Center (JCTC) presents Trojan Women, a modern multimedia and multilingual adaptation of the classic Greek tragedy by Euripides, directed by Olga Levina, JCTC's Artistic Director.
A foreign army marches through the defeated city of Troy. They destroy every vestige of civilization left after a brutal war. They’ve slaughtered the men and captured the women, whom they brutally assault and separate from their children. Will the only survivors of Troy be massacred as well? Will the women be forced into marriage or slavery by their conquerors or will they be made to live like refugees in their devastated city, subject to the whims and desires of the occupying soldiers?
Trojan Woman is that rare work of literature that has gained more power and relevance with time... JCTC’s production of Trojan Women highlights women's strength, wisdom and compassion and is meant to spark a conversation about the ways “the others” are dehumanized through prejudice, oppression and violence in society. For thousands of years, men have fought wars, but women endure the aftermath, binding the wounds, mopping up the blood and stitching civilization back together. JCTC has brought diverse team of artists from multiple arts disciplines and cultural backgrounds to create Trojan Women for 21st century audiences.

JCTC/Merseles Studios November 2-18; Thursday-Saturday, 8:00-9:30; Sunday, 6:00-7:30

Cast:
Tatyana Zbirovskaya, Hecuba | Natalia Volkodaeva, Andromache | Mahalet Dejene, Cassandra | Dina Manganaris, Helen
Naya A. Desir-Johnson, Astyanax | Steven Martin, Athena/Greek soldier | Zach Hendrickson, Poseidon/Greek soldier Kevin Terwin, Menelaus/Greek soldier | Oliver Henry Fishman, Talthybius/Greek soldier
Trojan Women: Paula de Lima Torres, Daphnee McMaster, Julia Malinovskaya, Lorena Ibeth Marin Ortiz, Te'ena Klein, Claudia Godi, Sylvana Joyce, Ariel Guidry, Aizzah Fatima
Greeks: Sanio Kurtesevic, John St. Croix

Laia Cabrera and Isabelle Duverger – Scenography, Projection Mapping and Video Art
Steven Vessella – Stage Manager | Frank Ippolito – Art and Set Designer and Construction
Lance A Michel – Lighting Designer, Tech Director | Fernando Ayres – Venue Manager, Technician Matthew Holowienka - Costume Designer | Lucy Rovetto – Still Photography | Jenny Brover – Art Photography | Ekaterina Abramova – Artist, Cover Image
Marketing: Timothy Herrick – Publicity | Bang Chau – graphic design, photography

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pictures by Isabelle Duverger

"Shifting Gaze", "Untitled Mind" and "Quantum" at JCAST HQ 2018

JCAST converted a raw space at the Pathside Building, Jersey City’s future world-class arts & culture community center, into a museum-quality gallery space–JCAST HQ.
October 4-7, 2018 at 84 Sip Ave, Journal Square, Jersey City
Event Producer Sophie Penkrat/Curator Tina Maneca

We presented there 3 site-specific video installations: "Shifting Gaze", "Untitled Mind" and "Quantum".

Watch teaser:


"Untitled Mind" is a multilayered mapped installation conceived as a short film video dance piece that explores the otherness in the self, focusing on the idea of the mirrored one, the creative ability, the dream, the unconscious mind. Directed and filmed by Laia Cabrera, the piece is based on an original idea by Catherine Correa in collaboration with awarded choreographer Alexandre Proia. The piece features two actors/dancers Catherine Correa and Jonathan Royse Windham with production design and visual effects by Isabelle Duverger, music by Javier Moreno Sanchez, sound design by Gisella-Fulla Silvestre and Arooj Aftab.





"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 (animation and mapping). 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.









"Quantum" is a series of videoart pieces about time, life and space by Laia Cabrera and Isabelle Duverger

Self on the Shelf Immersive Interactive Art Installation for Spring/Break Art Show, March 6-12, 2018

In 'Self On The Shelf', filmmaker and videoartist Laia Cabrera and animator and video mapper Isabellle Duverger will co-create an interactive immersive installation for Spring Break Art Show, as part of the Armory Arts Week, turning a small boy's bedroom into a nightmarish dreamscape in honor of the eponymous elf which has become the symbol of our children's intimate acceptance of 21st century surveillance realities.
Through immersive interactive projection mapping, video art, illustration and animation, Laia Cabrera and Isabelle Duverger, in collaboration with interaction designer Nicola Carpeggiani, will create a child's bedroom and bring it to life as it responds to a series of clues or hints, which will be given to visitors as they enter the room.
Extracted from a 2012 journal entry about Chris' son and his relationship with James, his first Elf on the Shelf, the concept of this stranger from the North Pole was born. The dramatic visual effects will transform the room as the viewer explores feelings, emotions and limits between reality and fantasy.

Christine Miele, Curator
An Immersive Art Installation by Laia Cabrera and Isabelle Duverger
Interaction by Nicola Carpeggiani / Experiential Branding by Laura Valenzuela


Renders by Isabelle Duverger and Laia Cabrera

Self on the Shelf Immersive Interactive Video Mapping Art Installation
Spring/Break Art Show, March 6-12, 2018 
Spring Break Art Show, as part of Armory Arts Week
4 Times Square, New York, NY - March 6-12, 2018 from 11am to 6pm
Guest Passes Here: eventbrite.com/o/springbreak-art-show-12813445625
Artwork on sale here: springbreakartfair.com

Trailer of Deutsches Haus' 40th anniversary Installation

Video Projection Mapping, Videoart and Animation by Laia Cabrera & Isabelle Duverger
Deutsches Haus at NYU - 42 Washington Mews (corner of University Place), Greenwich Village, New York, NY

Projection Mapping for Deutsches Haus' 40th anniversary

Video Projection Mapping, Visuals and Animations by Laia Cabrera & Isabelle Duverger (Laia Cabrera & Co)
Deutsches Haus at NYU - 42 Washington Mews (corner of University Place), Greenwich Village, New York, NY
Friday, September 22, 2017

World Pride Madrid 2017 Reception - White Box Gallery, SoHo, NYC

Triptych Projection Mapping and Videoart by Laia Cabrera & Co.
December 6th, 2016 - White Box Gallery, SoHo, New York City, NY
















Juan Carlos Alonso, Chairman of the Organizing Committee of WorldPride2017 participated with Sue Doster, Co-Chair of InterPride - International Association of LGBTI Pride Organizers and Alan Reiff, Co-Chair of InterPride's Worldpride Committee at the media presentation held in New York by the City of Madrid and the Community of Madrid. Event organized by SpainFresh, Locamente and Media Consulta International.