Mapping Intersensory Domains

This Friday and Saturday (October 9 & 10), Portland-based indie group Other Lives teams with Steppenwolf Theatre Company co-founder Terry Kinney for Reconfiguration: An Evening with Other Lives—playing the BAM Howard Gilman Opera House at 7:30 PM. Intricately mapping live video, lighting, and projections to meticulously arranged songs from their recent releases, Kinney creates an engrossing audio-visual narrative wrought from the band’s lyrics and Oklahoma origins. At the core of this image-saturated foray lies original animation by Matt Huynh and projection design by Daniel Brodie. We sat down with the two visual masterminds to learn more about their processes, creative practices, lives in Brooklyn and so much more.

Brodie's work for Kanye West at Lollapalooza.

What classes, moments, or other projects have been the highlights of your careers thus far?

DANIEL BRODIE: I’ve been very fortunate to have worked with some tremendous artists and collaborators. I’m especially proud to have worked with legendary puppeteer and recent MacArthur fellow Basil Twist. We’ve worked together on four or five shows, including his new show, Sisters’ Follies, running now through November 7 at Abrons Arts Center. I mostly work in Broadway theater and I’ve also designed video effects for some giant acts like Kanye West and Mariah Carey.

MATT HUYNH: I'm very proud of an interactive comic I've just released with Australian TV station SBS—The Boat. It's based on the acclaimed short story by Nam Le and we spent a year researching and developing an original online, interactive format for comics from the ground up. It incorporates sound design, animation, archival film, and photography with traditional ink and brush illustration. It also let me explore a very personal part of my family's history—post-Vietnam war migration—and speak to contemporary issues in Australia's asylum seeker and refugee issues.

I've also been a regular contributor to The New York Times, have had my illustrated reportage of the Occupy Wall Street demonstrations exhibited at the MoMA and had my comics presented on the Sydney Opera House stage.