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.

Reconfiguration—A Visual Transformation of Music by Other Lives

L-R: Josh Onstott, Jesse Tabish, Jonathon Mooney. Photo: Amanda Leigh Smith/YONDER

By Jane Jansen Seymour

Indie rock band Other Lives brings a cinematic expansiveness to music, and now a team of theatrical designers is providing a setting on stage befitting the sound. Conceived by producer Rebecca Habel and director Terry Kinney of Mixtape Productions, Reconfiguration: An Evening with Other Lives will be presented October 9 & 10 in the majestic Howard Gilman Opera House, as part of the Next Wave Festival. With a format similar to a symphony, ballet, or theater piece, the performances offer an inventive way to experience a band in concert.

In Context: Reconfiguration: An Evening with Other Lives

Reconfiguration: An Evening with Other Lives comes to BAM on October 9. Context is everything, so get even closer to the production with this curated selection of articles and videos related to the show. After you've attended the show, let us know what you thought below and by posting on social media using #OtherLives.