A highlight of the annual California Institute of the Arts (CalArts) Expo are the massive motion graphics—developed by students of Peter Flaherty's class "Architectural Projection and Video Objects"—projected across the exterior and interior walls of the main building, come to life with the imaginative visions of its students. When CalArts Expo 2020 launches as an online event on May 15, the projections will be exhibited as video fly-throughs of the fully-rendered 3D models; but first, the students, working from home since March, required the necessary tools to complete their final projects.
“When I learned that we would be moving to online learning, I reached out to disguise and asked if they could support us with licenses that our students could use at home," says Flaherty, director, interactive artist, and head of Interactive Media for Performance in the Experience Design and Production Program of CalArts’ School of Theater. “They immediately jumped in and mailed USB license keys to our students.”
“When Peter explained their situation at CalArts, we were happy to support the program with the extra dongles that the students needed in order to continue learning the disguise platform while working from home,” adds Vickie Claiborne, Americas Training Manager for disguise. "With the help of our US Sales and Support teams, dongles with Designer licenses were quickly mailed out, ensuring students could continue working on their final projects and complete them in time for their May 15 event.” Working in coordination with Flaherty, disguise provided the students with high-end media servers to realize the large-scale projects.
Using disguise, students can fully pre-visualize CalArts Main Building, including the architecture and the projected imagery as it would look on the building itself. CalArts student Kathleen Fox's project meditates on isolation in the time of COVID-19, using collaged imagery and text relating to the search for human connection.
Students plan to exhibit full-scale versions of their projects when CalArts reopens.