Creative Review

Our latest project for the BBC titled ‘Laughing Portraits’ featured in creative review this month.. Below is an extract for the piece.

BBC Radio 3, the producers of the Free Thinking Festival taking place at The Sage Gateshead from Friday 5th to Sunday 7th November 2010 have announced the creation of an exclusive art installation by a renowned international video artist, commissioned by BBC and NewcastleGateshead Initiative especially for the event, and produced by James Baxter of Newcastle-based J6 Films.

Taking place across all three days of the festival, Chuchie Hill’s art installation ‘Laughing Portraits’ has been designed specifically to mirror the overall theme of this year’s Festival, ‘The Pursuit of Happiness’.

Presented in the form of 30 flat TV screens spread throughout the concourse area of The Sage Gateshead, the installation will examine the portraits of 30 people between the ages of 2 and 80 years of age from across the region, laughing. The images will be both shot in high speed and creating a humorous and entertaining piece for all. To symbolise the natural arc of life, the first 15 screens will be arranged in an ascending row, while the second 15 will be descending.

Chuchie Hill explains:

“When high speed shooting, at approximately 1000 frames per second, we can capture every little movement of the faces muscles and skin not appreciated when normal speed or live.

“If a laugh is captured in high speed and recorded all the way up until the person stops laughing, then played backwards, we shall see the build up of what a person’s face goes through when going to laugh. This is a visual metaphor of the pursuit of happiness, contemplated with a magnifying glass''