NIGHTSCAPE and the KLIP Collective

Produced by Michael O’Reilly

KLIP Collective, as the name might suggest, is not a commune of barber hippies. It is not even a collective in the traditional “one for all and all for one” sense of the word. Rather, it is a collection of talented designers, compositors and filmmakers that make video, among other things, that is used in “projection mapping”. Instead of telling you just what projection mapping is, Creative Director Ricardo Rivera would rather show you. (Essentially, it is projecting video onto an object and manipulating the video so that it takes the shape of that object.) And show you he does – in a big way – at Longwood Gardens with the NIGHTSCAPE “light and sound experience, transforming the gardens into a living canvas where light dances with shadow and music fills the air”.

Using the naturally occurring plant life and landscaping that is a hallmark of the famed outdoor and indoor arboretum, KLIP projects video on individual trees and plants. Projections of fish actually seem to leap out of a pond with a stand of trees serving as the backdrop for the dual projectors working in tandem to the music. The tour de force is a variety of projections in the topiary garden, synchronized to music composed specifically for these projections. Exquisitely sculpted bushes actually seem to “become” a series of fantastical musical horns, huffing in time to the bass oomph one hears in the music. Judging by the crowds of couples, strollers, scooters, Rascals and walkers, NIGHTSCAPE is an unqualified hit for Longwood Gardens, with people of all ages.

All for a Shoe

Produced by Michael O’Reilly, Edited by Travis Southard

Artist and creative director of Klip Collective, Ricardo Rivera talks about his team’s experience in turning NBA player, Carmelo Anthony into a seventy-foot tall hologram on the Hudson River in New York City. Ricardo also discuses the struggle between art and commercialism, and how that struggle allows him and his team to build some great pieces.