I think of the universe as being filled with waves in four-dimensional space-time. The question was: how could I recreate this idea on the ceiling of the Arlington Theater in Santa Barbara for Lucidity Festival’s show on October 4th, 2013? I found a variety of wave patterns on the Internet that I’d then shift into grid patterns using VJing software but it didn’t look right. Eventually, I found myself going back to the library of water textures that Ethan Turpin and myself have been amassing. By layering one grid pattern of water textures over another and slowing them down tremendously, I got the desired result.
I used a single projector to conduct my tests on the Arlington ceiling and they were very successful. I thought it was going to be an easy kill. On the day of the event, I set up the first short throw projector and it looked great. But when I walked to the other extremity of the parking lot-sized theater, the imagery was reduced in immensity by alarming proportions. It was like having a walnut suddenly become the size of a pea. It began to dawn on me that to pull this show off I needed to do some serious re-adjustments. I spent hours and hours moving projectors around and fattening up the imagery as necessary. I even added an extra projector to fill in an ominous dead spot and made a new movie for it on the fly. An hour before the show I finally got it to an acceptable state.