In Broadcast - October 2014 - 52


I N T E R N A T I O N A L

N E W S

WWW.INBROADCAST.COM | ISSUE 36 - OCTOBER 2014

InFORM

AJA Io 4K Powers Art Installation For
'Breathless Beauty, Broken Beauty'
A

rtist and ﬁlmmaker Vanessa
Jane Hall is pushing the
boundaries of technology and
art with her most recent work,
'Breathless Beauty, Broken Beauty',
an immersive art installation on
display at the Victoria and Albert
Museum from September 4 to
October 27, 2014, opening as part
of the acclaimed London Design
Festival.

Hall and her partner Mark Gilbert
also own UK-based Gallery, a
leading audio and video technology
provider that was responsible for
designing the back-end technical
infrastructure to support this
ambitious work of art. For many
years, Gallery has incorporated
AJA Video hardware into its
clients' workﬂows for optimised
performance and flexibility.
"Even
at
4K,
projecting the imagery
compromised the
quality, so we decided
to use screens for the
installation - however
getting the screens to
sync up was a challenge,"
said Mark Gilbert. "From
previous experience
we felt confident that
AJA's Io 4K driving 4K
playout from Mac Minis,
would be a reliable,
straightforward, and
Hall's 'Breathless Beauty, Broken Beauty'
cost-effective solution that
immersive art installation

52

allowed us to faithfully represent the
source image."
'Breathless Beauty, Broken Beauty'
is comprised of three 65-inch
screens arranged in a triptych, built
into the walls of a 14 and a half-foot
high temple-like sculpture which
viewers step in to. From sparkling
halls to derelict corridors, the ﬁlm
inside the sculpture takes the viewer
on an atmospheric journey showing
the beauty and agony of the English
country house.
Footage was shot in 4K by Hall,
this was needed to capture the realworld detail and to provide a more
immersive experience. The ﬁlm is
accompanied by an atmospheric
soundscape and poetic voiceover by
Catherine McGoohan & Neil Dickson.
To achieve perfectly synced
high resolution 12K imagery
across the three screens, Mark
Gilbert served as the creative
technologist on the project, he
tested various workflows and
ultimately landed on a combination

of, three Mac Minis, three AJA Io 4K
devices, and VirtualVTR software
(developed by Gallery) to control
the synchronised playback.
"I felt the success of creating an
immersive environment was linked
to the amount of image detail I could
show, and I felt I really needed to
work in 4K. The images in the ﬁlm
are rich with detail, and 4K allows
people to experience all that,"
explained Hall.

Gallery's Virtual VTR software syncs
video via three AJA Io 4K units to a
trio of 65-inch LG monitors

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In Broadcast - October 2014

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