Portrait and a Dream

Associate Video & Projection Design for Opera

Portrait and a Dream is a sequence of tone-poems inspired by works that span the breadth of Jackson Pollock’s life. The libretto - an assemblage of vocal recordings of the people who knew Pollock - deconstructs the artist’s myth by splintering narrative, intention, and truth. The production considers whether it is possible to be an artist in the US in the modern moment or whether the legacy of the mid-20th century art scene has led to a post-art society where the artist is a symbol and a successful artist is a commodity.

Magnus Pind’s video design utilized pre-recorded imagery of organic materials and live cinema techniques to magnify the materiality of scenographic objects. As Associate Video Designer, I served as an on site proxy for Pind, who was in Copenhagen during the premiere, and in this capacity sourced production equipment, collaborated on technical and creative decisions, and adapted the design for the specifics of the performance environment.