BEYOND IMAGES

This project intends to recreate how it feels to be in a protest that involves police intervention and police brutality through the usage of a composed sound track in addition to light effects, which together impact the audience and place them in a different reality. For those who have been in a protest, this experience brings memories and evokes different feelings that might have been experienced before. For the ones who have never being in a protest, in a smaller scale, this experience lets them imagine how it might be to be in a protest that faces police intervention and repression.

This projects intends to create an environment through which the audience can not only reflect about police brutality during protests, but can also be immersed in an environment that will let them imagine how it might feel to be in a protest with police intervention. The installation intends to impact individuals through an approach that goes beyond images. In addition, it intends to not only awaken different emotions, but also stimulate people to reflect about police actions during protests around the world.

Inspiration for the Project:

Nowadays, with an easy accessibility to video cameras, lots of people are recording videos of police brutality and are posting it on social media platforms. This has revolutionized who controls the media and the information that is being shared. On the other hand, most people are often times just scrolling through their timelines and as they see some photos and videos of police brutality, they aren’t impacted anymore. Lots of people just scroll down, look at it, and don’t have any reactions to it as the content doesn’t awaken strong feelings to impact their minds and emotions. When certain people are powerfully impacted, often times, it’s momentary and it’s likely to be quickly forgotten as they move on to the next post. Thus, I felt the need to create a project that lets the audience go beyond visual images, while stimulating other senses to reflect about police brutality.

Technical Aspects:

This is an installation piece that involves audio and video. The installation has one projector, three headphones and three goggles and it can be experienced by up to three people simultaneously.

Duration: 4 minutes

Set up: Three individuals seat next to each other while wearing the goggles, which lets light through, but it doesn’t let the person see clear images. The three people wear headphones while facing the projector as a 4-minute video plays. Therefore, the projection is pointed at their eyes, which through the goggles lets light and colors through.

Notes about the Audio and Visuals:

The audio track has been carefully composed and it includes audio from many different protests, including the following: OWS in the US, June protests in Brazil, Arab Spring protests, Black March in NYC, Ferguson protest, among others. The video has been developed so audio and visuals are synchronized. The video explores lights, colors, shapes and moving images which are synchronized with the audio. The audience must be wearing headphones (instead of the audio coming from speakers) considering that the audio track has been composed using a plug in (binaural) that creates a special dimension, which is only fully experienced if listened through headphones.