PHILIPPE BAYLAUCQ PHILIP BEESLEY

SYLVA
A ground breaking film in 3D
PHILIPPE BAYLAUCQ
&
PHILIP BEESLEY
CRITICAL ACCLAIM FOR ORA BY PHILIPPE BAYLAUCQ
“cinematic innovation of the highest order”
Dave Robson, SOUND ON SIGHT
“ORA has a mesmerizing effect, as sensual and
dignified as the modern dance it shows”
Guy Dixon, GLOBE AND MAIL
“Visually breathtaking”
Richard Burnett, THE MONTREAL GAZETTE
CRITICAL ACCLAIM FOR HYLOZOIC GROUND
“extraordinarily beautiful and reverent”
Gary Michael Dault, CANADIAN ARCHITECT
“floated like a waking dream…suspended in
an opalescent membrane”
Robert Everett–Green, GLOBE AND MAIL
“symphony of pure sensation”
Ben Lensink, SCHREEF DE TWENTSCHE COURANT TUBANTIA
SYLVA
A ground breaking film in 3D
PHILIPPE BAYLAUCQ
&
PHILIP BEESLEY
© 2011 National Film Board of Canada
Philippe Baylaucq’s ground breaking
film ORA created a sensation at the
2011 Toronto International Film
Festival with its unprecedented
innovations in 3D thermal imaging.
Philip Beesley’s Hylozoic Ground
has captured worldwide press for its
immersive visions of a delicate, forestlike future architecture that can move,
and even think and feel.
SYLVA will use next generation 3D
cinematography to reveal the complex
collaborative process behind Beesley’s
installations and to present a stunning
new experience of this visionary work.
Over 1 million people have experienced Hylozoic Ground in person.
Projects since 2007 include major installations in Venice, Madrid,
Linz, Enschede, Brussels, New York, Los Angeles, New Orleans,
Mexico City, Copenhagen, Moscow, Reims, and Salt Lake City.
Upcoming projects are slated for Madrid, Wellington, Sydney,
Santiago de Compostela, Liverpool and Trondheim.
The work has been featured in WIRED and MARK magazine and
numerous journals including the The Wall Street Journal, as well
as the covers of LEONARDO and ARTIFICIAL LIFE, and. The
work was also showcased on the CBC National News, Discovery
Planet and Vernissage TV.
Hylozoic Veil The Leonardo, Salt Lake City US 2011
Hylozoic Ground Venice Biennale for Architecture, 2010
3D cinema a new paradigm
Architect and artist Philip Beesley and filmmaker Philippe Baylaucq are
pursuing new possibilities for a stereoscopic 3D film depicting SYLVA, a
new work from the acclaimed Hylozoic Series of immersive environmental
structures. The use of space, depth, movement, textures, form and light make
these « living » sculptures the ideal subject matter for a 3D film experience.
The work of Philip Beesley provides an abundance of themes and an original
visual universe that stereoscopy is well equipped to convey and celebrate.
It is the goal of this project to use 3D technology and vocabulary to bring
the architectural, aesthetic and kinetic concerns of Beesley’s work to another
level. What can be done with the stereoscopic tools to see and experience
SYLVA in a new light? What unimagined new dimensions will the language
of film and particularly stereoscopic filming reveal?
Ora Directed by / Réalisé par Philippe Baylaucq Produced by / Produit par René
Chénier © 2011 National Film Board of Canada / Office national du film du Canada.
Advances in digital imaging have made 3D stereoscopic cinematography the
immersive film experience of our generation. Innovative ways of perceiving
space offer possibilities for new emotional connections. The recent successes
of Wim Wenders’ Pina, portraying the famous German choreographer Pina
Baush, and Baylaucq’s own ground breaking thermographic infrared 3D film
Ora have opened the way to the inventive and inspired use of stereoscopy to
convey the richness of artistic subjects on the big screen - with depth.
Building on the international reputation of Hylozoic Ground, SYLVA in 3D
will add a new perspective to the growing momentum surrounding the series.
For SYLVA, cameras will be placed side-by-side and synchronized, like
human eyes, enabling us to see in three dimensions. As a result, the cameras
allow us to perceive the surprising reality of the immersive and responsive
environments in stereoscopy.
a 3 tiered project
The Hylozoic Series is ambitious, and so is the film approach. We envision a
three tiered project uniting diverse but complimentary perspectives on the subject:
1 Short stereoscopic art film
Focused on one or more of Beesley’s installations and designed to respond to the
camera thus affording a revealing, uniquely cinematographic perspective on
Beesley’s work. This piece will be developed to share immersive experiences in
spaces where full sculptural incarnations are not physically possible.
2 Documentary film (3D & 2D, 52 minutes)
Developed for international HD festival and television markets. The film would
depict the human face of the Hylozoic Series, a story of collective creativity,
visionary stewardship, personal poetics, and intellectual inquiry that moves from
archaeological sites in Rome to the wilderness of Lake Superior to a thriving
design studio in Toronto’s West end. All of this will be brought to life in full 3D
with a unabashed intention to use the medium in inventive ways - always in
keeping with the spirit of Beesley’s celebrated vision.
3 Interactive website & mobile app.
Online audiences would be invited to discover new facets of SYLVA, see
segments of the films and access relevant background information. Furthermore,
by having individual users provide information about the actual space they are
occupying, the site could set up feedback loops that translate this information
into relevant data and insight. Interactive mobile technologies could be used in
two modes: as tools for measuring aspects of the space that users are in and
as tools for measuring, within that space, its impact on the user’s bodies. Ideas
about responsive architecture in nascent and simple forms could be hinted at by
exploring this type of web interactivity.
Hylozoic Soil Festival de Mexico, 2010
Artist: Philip Beesley
Architect and sculptor Philip Beesley is demonstrating how
buildings in the future might move, and even feel and
think. In a series of experimental installations that have
attracted global attention, Beesley is leading a group
of experts from science and art in creating a uniquely
Canadian experimental architecture. These projects are a
hybrid of sculpture, engineering, experimental chemistry
and architecture.
Projects since 2007 include installations in Madrid,
Moscow, Linz, Enschede, Brussels, New York, Los
Angeles, New Orleans, Mexico City, Copenhagen and
in 2010, PBAI was selected to represent Canada at
the Venice Biennale for Architecture. Recent installations
include a permanent exhibit at The Leonardo in Salt Lake
City, Utah and Sargasso for Toronto’s 2011 Luminato
Festival. Upcoming 2012 exhibits are scheduled for
Edmonton, Madrid, Wellington, and Sydney. The work
has been featured in WIRED and MARK magazine and on
the covers of LEONARDO and ARTIFICIAL LIFE. Distinctions
include FEIDAD, VIDA 11.0, ACADIA Digital Practice,
RAIC Allied Arts Medal, and Prix de Rome (Canada).
Filmmaker: Philippe Baylaucq
Filmmaker Philippe Baylaucq was born in Kingston,
Ontario, in 1958, studied in London, and first came to
prominence during the 1980s for his work in videography
and in cinema. His films are characterized by frequent
experimentation with form, an affinity for technological
innovation and an interest in various artistic disciplines
including architecture (Barcelone, 1985; Phyllis Lambert,
une biographie, 1994), painting (Mystère B., 1997; Les
couleurs du sang, 2000) and dance (Les choses dernières,
1994; Lodela, 1996; ORA, 2011). His films have won
numerous awards at Montreal’s International Festival of
Films on Art, as well as at many international film festivals.
The multi-talented Baylaucq has also directed a children’s
musical tale starring puppets (Hugo et le dragon, 2001),
a science film (La dynamique du cerveau, 2008) and A
Dream for Kabul (2008) – a moving documentary about a
man who travels to Kabul to assist ordinary people, after
losing his own son in the attacks of September 11, 2001.
Baylaucq was also the director in charge of Happiness
Bound (2007), an homage to Quebec poetry.
© 2011 National Film Board of Canada /
Office national du film du Canada.
Hylozoic Ground Venice Biennale for Architecture, 2010
hylozoic ground
Hylozoic Ground is an immersive interactive environment that is part of the
Hylozoic Series of works. The project’s title refers to ‘hylozoism’, the ancient
belief that all matter has life. For the 12th International Architecture Exhibition
Hylozoic Ground transformed the Canada Pavilion with an immersive,
interactive environment made from tens of thousands of lightweight digitallyfabricated components fitted with meshed microprocessors and sensors. The
glass-like fragility of this artificial forest was built of an intricate lattice of small
transparent acrylic meshwork links, covered with a network of interactive
mechanical fronds, filters and whiskers. These environments are similar to
a coral reef, following cycles of opening, clamping, filtering and digesting.
Arrays of touch sensors create waves of diffuse breathing motion, luring visitors
into the shimmering depths of a forest of light.
Hylozoic Ground offers a vision for a new generation of responsive
architecture. The Hylozoic Ground environment can be described as a
suspended geotextile that gradually accumulates hybrid soil from ingredients
drawn from its surroundings. Akin to the functions of a living system, embedded
machine intelligence allows human interaction to trigger breathing, caressing,
and swallowing motions, as well as hybrid metabolic exchanges. These
empathic motions ripple out from hives of kinetic valves and pores in
peristaltic waves, creating a diffuse pumping that pulls air, moisture and stray
organic matter through the filtering Hylozoic membranes. ‘Living’ chemical
exchanges are conceived as the first stages of self-renewing functions that
might take root within this architecture.
Hylozoic Soil Montreal Museum of Fine Arts, 2007
Hylozoic Ground Venice Biennale for Architecture, 2010
“ This skein casts itself all over and around you
as you move through the darkened Pavilion,
catching you in infinite geometries that seem
to change as you move through the lacunae in
the web. Then the whole structure, or just a
small part, will start to move, its tiny muscles
contracting or relaxing…If architecture aspires
at times to be a framing structure that comes
between ourselves as human bodies incarnate
and a wider universe, providing a way of
establishing our place in that larger world,
then it would seem appropriate that architects
today begin to develop structures that articulate
what we currently understand that universe
to be. Hylozoic Ground is, beyond an exquisite
movement of modern Rococo, an attempt to
construct such a veil of emplacement.”
Aaron Betsky, Director Cincinnati Art Museum,
Director 11th Venice International Architecture Biennale,
“Beyond Buildings: As it Lives and Breathes”,
Architect magazine, October 2011
“…the glass-like fragility of this artificial forest,
built of an intricate lattice of small transparent
acrylic tiles, is visually breathtaking. Its frond
extremities arch uncannily towards those who
venture into its midst, reaching out to stroke
and be stroked like the feather or fur or hair of
some mysterious animal…
…Beesley’s Hylozoic Soil stands as a magically
moving contemporary symbol of our aptitude
for empathy and the creative projection of
living systems.”
Fundacion Telefonica Jury, 1st prize, VIDA 11.0
Hylozoic Ground Venice Biennale for Architecture, 2010
Ora Directed by / Réalisé par Philippe Baylaucq Produced by / Produit par René
Chénier © 2011 National Film Board of Canada / Office national du film du Canada.
ORA
A cell divides itself. From this first mass of light six luminous bodies soon
emerge. They evolve in a world they are discovering – explorers lit by
their internal light, leaving behind traces of the fire that animates them.
ORA is a stunning meeting of the artistic worlds of choreographer José
Navas and filmmaker Philippe Baylaucq. It is the first film to use 3D
thermal imaging, producing visuals unlike anything ever seen before:
the luminous variations of body heat seen on skin, bodies emitting a
multitude of colours, a space filled with movement that transforms itself.
ORA is dance transformed by cinema – a completely unique film
experience. Director Philippe Baylaucq brings us a spectacular
cinematic adventure, in the great tradition of innovative films
produced by the National Film Board of Canada.
© 2011 National Film Board of Canada / Office national du film du Canada.
“ Ora is both a game changer and a trip into
unknown territory. In the first film to use 3D
thermal imaging, luminous bodies emerge
from a single dividing cell...
© 2011 National Film Board of Canada / Office national du film du Canada.
...What ensues is akin to the first human
steps: the discovery of the body and its
relation to space. Choreographer José Navas
and filmmaker Philippe Baylaucq create a
cinematic sensation.”
Dance on Camera Festival Lincoln Center, New York.
© 2011 National Film Board of Canada / Office national du film du Canada.
“ Technically, this is the most futuristic, gamechanging film at TIFF 2011. Baylaucq,
assembling a troupe of six muscular and
elegant modern dancers, photographed them
in darkness with 3D thermal imaging cameras.
The cameras sense heat, not light, and the
evolving patterns we see in each dancer’s
body are exhilarating, as well as scientifically
interesting esoteric art and technology merge
into mainstream entertainment. Like the
famous Muybridge experiments with the
earliest approximations of a motion picture
camera (he showed a horse and a man in
locomotion) ORA is a thrilling leap forward.”
Bruce Kirkland, Toronto Sun
www.philipbeesleyarchitect.com
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