(Provideo Coalition, 4 November 2013) – As a long time entertainment industry producer and creator, it’s been so exciting to be a involved in the new media technologies and innovative narratives that are emerging on the entertainment landscape. These technologies are giving us new ways in which we can extend our storyworlds, express our creativity and expand the way we share our stories and artistic projects.
My partner, Ed Lantz, President and CTO of Vortex Immersion Media, owns and operates The Vortex Dome, a 50 foot R&D cinema dome studio space located at Los Angeles Center Studios, an independent jewel of a studio just north of the 110 freeway and east of the 10 in downtown LA. LACS is the home of MAD MEN and several other television shows, as well as a favorite base camp for big feature films that shoot in downtown LA like DARK KNIGHT 2, etc. We’ve had offices on the lot since June 2010 and have been building a growing collective of artists and storytellers eager to work in the 360 fulldome immersive space. It’s an exciting new frontier for storytellers and artists and the opportunities in the fulldome format are only limited by one’s imagination and skillsets.
The fulldome venue represents the next generation of cinema and live performance space. It’s been maturing as a format in the planetarium space but is now beginning to emerge on the media and entertainment horizon as a new venue platform. Artists love the space and have been creating content only really able to be seen at various fulldome festivals popping up around the world, a few progressive planetariums, and in The Vortex Dome theater. China, and countries in the Middle East, also see the powerful potential of the fulldome space and are beginning to build 360 immersive theater venues for showcasing entertainment and art – not just science, and a vital and growing trade association, IMERSA, exists to serve the fulldome format and creative community as well.
I’ve been involved with creative development and production for the fulldome and was recently fortunate to produce and present a trilogy of 360 immersive music+art concerts in the Vortex Dome called “Ultra Immersive: Deep, Deeper and Deepest” with famed ambient music innovator, Steve Roach, and talented 360 visual artist, Audri Phillips, who is also a participant in the Vortex Immersion Media and c3: Center for Conscious Creativity AIR: Artist In Residence Program.
As a pioneering cornerstone of ambient-atmospheric-electronic music, internationally-renowned artist Steve Roach has dedicated over three decades to exploring myriad soundworlds that connect with a timeless source of inspiration. From the expansive, time-suspending spaces reflecting his spiritual home in Arizona to the fire breathing, rhythmic-shamanic expressions woven from all things electric and organic, Roach has earned his position in the international pantheon of major new music artists through a long list of groundbreaking recordings, fueled by his prolific nature and uncompromising approach. The core of this innovative world of sound has been nourished by years of dynamic live concert events in many extraordinary worldwide settings, further enhancing the emotive, cinematic soul-stirring depth of his music.
Steve has collaborated with numerous visual artists since the beginning of his career in Los Angeles starting in the early 1980′s. During his 11 years living on edge of innovations with sound and vision in Los Angeles it was common to see “Vuscians” set up on the same stage improvising with video synthesizers and using projection systems of that era. Fast forward to 2013, hundreds of music — visual concerts worldwide the Vortex Dome Immersion concert experience was a homecoming for Steve Roach who has not performed in Los Angeles since the early 1990s. Joining Steve to carry the visual torch into the now is 360 fulldome visual artist and VJ, Audri Phillips, who created original material for the event and presented it live in the moment interactive with the Steve’s space and time altering soundworlds.
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