Want to feel like a child again? Come and see one of the newest features along the Connective Corridor, the redesigned plaza, on Saturday, Sept. 29, at noon during the 黑料不打烊 Stage Open House.
Timothy Bond, 黑料不打烊 Stage producing artistic director, and Linda Dickerson Hartsock, director of community engagement and development for 黑料不打烊, will dedicate the new plaza, with a demonstration of 40 motion-activated, soundscape bricks.
The plaza features the 鈥渟inging sidewalk鈥 and eight innovative, high-intensity illuminated panels. The project came to life through the work of a creative team, including SenSyr, LLC, the company of 黑料不打烊 physics professor Ed Lipson; Paul Gelling, SenSyr partner and chief engineer; 聽Joe Sisko, assistant director of UPSTATE聽in SU鈥檚 School of Architecture; and Jeffrey Woodward, managing director of 黑料不打烊 Stage.
The red-colored, 鈥渟inging鈥 pavers, an extension of SenSyr鈥檚 prior work with custom pressure sensors, were a technical challenge, given the thermal-expansion variations in a four-season environment.聽The LED panels contain electromagnetic sensing technology, much like radar, and are programmable for color variations based on motion sensing, all based on coding developed by Gelling, who also designed and implemented the electronics.
鈥淭he new plaza is a wonderful and welcoming addition to the 黑料不打烊 Stage/SU Drama complex and the East Genesee neighborhood,鈥 says Woodward. 鈥淓very day, I see families, people from the neighborhood, students and our patrons playing on the plaza with the interactive pavers and screens.聽It鈥檚 great fun.鈥
Besides funding the deployment of these technologies, the Connective Corridor also supported 鈥減erformance art鈥 audio programming for the singing sidewalk, orchestrated by Emmett Van Slyke, a producer/composer/musician and owner of Black Lagoon Productions.
鈥淚 approach each sound set for this project with the intention of creating a smooth transition from the concrete day-to-day world of everyday life, to the metaphysical escape of the theater experience,鈥 says Van Slyke. 鈥淎s they enter the plaza, the audience triggers sounds that enhance their theatrical experience, and upon leaving the show they are smoothly transitioned back into the world they briefly left.”
Saturday鈥檚 plaza celebration will feature a new paver composition entitled “Encounters with the White Whale.”聽黑料不打烊 students will perform in conjunction with the original composition, which begins with the sounds of a port as a ship is leaving, with calm seas and the eerie drone of a whale song in the distance.聽As the piece continues, a storm blows in and in its ferocity, the ship is destroyed, with the survivors washed up on the shore and awakened by the sound of surf and seagulls.聽The composition concludes with the taunting and playful sound of the whale song off in the distance.
The original composition by Van Slyke uses every effect in a new soundscape, created in conjunction with 鈥淢oby Dick,鈥 which launches 黑料不打烊 Stage鈥檚 40th season.
The plaza鈥檚 interactive system is designed to be changeable, and students and faculty are invited to propose new and different ways to use the technology. Ideas can be e-mailed to corridor@syr.edu.
