The Motley Emblem of Our Work

KMA is a collaboration between the artists Kit Monkman and Tom Wexler.

Together, their mission is to apply leading digital innovation to large-scale live environments in order to expand the audiences’ experience of theatrical work beyond the physical environment in which it is presented. Within the last few years KMA has become a leading and prolific innovator across stage, film and public environments, expanding expectations of how technology can interface with these fields and how audiences ultimately experience the work.

more about KMA…

24 Apr 2008
“To Be Straight With You” arrives in the UK

After an Antipodean excursion, the new work by Lloyd Newson and DV8, “To Be Straight With You” has begun touring in the UK. KMA worked closely with Newson on the piece, producing all the projections that accompany, enclose, reveal and augment the action on stage.

“Newson and his designers have beautiful surprises up their sleeves” - The Times
“Don’t ask how it works - it just does” - StageNoise
“Staged with vivid imagination, daring and technological skill” - The Australian

You can see the work as it tours during 2008 - UK dates include:

Cardiff Sherman: 24th - 25th April
Oxford Playhouse: 30th April - 3rd May
Newcastle Northern Stage: 8th - 10th May
Coventry Warwick Arts Centre: 21st - 24th May
Leeds West Yorkshire Playhouse: 4th - 7th June
Salford Lowry: 27th - 28th June
London National Theatre: 30th October - 9th November

 


02 Apr 2008
Finally, some video.

Due to popular demand, we’ve now put some short videos of some of our installation work online. Although all are in High Definition, please bear in mind that all of these pieces took place after dark and accept our apologies for any eye strain caused by their viewing. Follow www.vimeo.com/kma/videos to take a look.


03 Mar 2008
Flock…

KMA’s installation Flock has recently appeared in the following publications;

Bright: Architectural Illumination and Light Installations (Hardcover), Frame Publishers, Claire Lowther (Editor), Sarah Schultz (Editor), How Soon Is Now: 60 Years of the Institute of Contemporary Arts (Paperback) by Ekow Eshun (Editor), Pamela Jahn (Editor), and (!!!) Dorling Kindersley’s, The Gadget Book: How Really Cool Stuff Works (Hardcover) by Chris Woodford (Author), Jon Woodcock (Author)


04 Feb 2008
The Hive

Our latest public installation, The Hive, opened on Friday night in Dublin’s Grand Canal Square. The piece is one of our most site-specific works, picking up on the science-fiction theme established by the angular architecture and bold Spiers & Major permanent light installation. Commissioned by the newly opened Science Gallery at Trinity College, which opened its doors to the public this week, and supported by the Dublin Docklands Development Authority, The Hive will be encouraging passers by to brave the cold and the gales every night from dusk until 10pm until the 9th February. There are a few photos on our Flickr page - more to follow imminently…

03 Jan 2008
Happy New Year. (It must be time for the biannual KMA website update…)

Since June we’ve been pretty busy. As soon as the lights went down on Find Me Amongst the Black at London’s recently re-opened South Bank we headed off to Umbria for a two week artists residency courtesy of the Esterni Festival of Contemporary Arts. After two weeks of sitting, eating, drinking, laughing and talking, all conducted in the baking forty degree Italian sunshine, we left browner, happier and wiser than when we arrived. On the rare occasions that we left the city’s mad dogs alone in the sun, we rediscovered the delights of Subbuteo in the festival bar.

On our return to England we headed straight into the visual development of Tom Sapsford’s new dance work, Regina. This was all created in rain sodden Somerset in darkened indoor spaces. Italy couldn’t have felt further away, but the piece, Tom’s effervescence (and damned fine cooking) all helped make it feel just as charming. The full length piece should premiere sometime in 2008.

In September it was back to Umbria to produce a new installation, inspired by our Subbuteo experiences of the summer. Fatball was a full scale version, with a projected pitch, and ball, using human players and real goals. The game was installed for the Esterni festival, just outside the bar (FAT) where the real Subbutteo pitch sits.

We arrived back in London at the end of September and went straight into a twelve week rehearsal / development period as the video artists for DV8’s new piece, To be Straight with You. As expected, the work was hard and the pace relentless. But it was exhilarating and intriguing too.

Meanwhile Fatball headed off to Perugia, whilst Flock (our ICA/Royal Opera House commission) toured South West England. Thanks to the support of Dance South West over 10,000 people in Plymouth, Taunton, Salisbury, Bournemouth & Truro dipped their toes into Flock’s digital swan lake.

Then in December it was off to Berlin for the premiere of the DV8 piece. The work heads off next to Australia, before touring the UK, Europe, and the USA.

We’re now working on a brand new installation called The Hive. This will premiere in Grand Canal Square, Dublin on February 1st 2008, and run until February 6th. It’s been commissioned to celebrate the opening of Dublin’s new Science Gallery and is presented by the Dublin Docklands Development Authority in collaboration with the Science Gallery . The piece is described below;

The Hive is a public shared experience consisting entirely of projected light and sound through which the audience can come and go.  By entering the work the audience take control of one part of an interactive ‘Fantasia’ which is driven by their movements and the changing rhythms and timbres of the music.  

Imagining a number of encounters with otherworldly life forms and environments; at times, swarms of tiny insect-like creatures flow through the space and swarm around the audience, weaving and flowing across the stage. Behind the scenes, computer models of swarms, cellular automata and fluid dynamics drive the projections, providing a link between the real world and this science-fiction fantasy.
Before we go to Dublin we’re also spending time on ‘Projecting Performance’, our research project with the University of Leeds; readying Eng-er-land for a new lease of life in the USA; and producing a short promo film for Arts Council England.

More soon…

27 Jun 2007
Find Me Amongst The Black

Tomorrow night sees the premiere of “Find Me Amongst The Black” at the Purcell Room, a new dance theatre collaboration between choreographer Darshan Singh Bhuller, writer Parv Bancil, and ourselves. More information about the piece can be found at the zeroculture website, and tickets are available from the South Bank Centre. The piece will also been performed on Friday and next week (5th & 6th July) at the MAC in Birmingham.

11 Jun 2007
Bollywood to Shanghai (via London)

It might finally be getting warm outside but we seem to be spending an increasing amount of time in darkened rooms locked away from the sunshine.

Our eyes are still blinking in the sun after leaving Sheffield arena where we’ve just finished work on the opening act for the IIFA Awards 2007 (a.k.a ‘Bollywood Oscars’). Our 4 minute film combined over 6000 frames of CGI and over 150 members of the good Yorkhire public (all shot against green-screen) to set the backdrop for a chorus of dancers and aerial acrobats and introduce the ceremony to 12,000 attendees and almost 500 million television viewers. There are a couple of photos from the rehearsals here and here

We’re now straight into our next project, a collaboration with choreographer Darshan Singh Bhuller on a new commission for the South Bank Centre. “Find Me Amongst the Black” premieres on Thursday 28th June at the Purcell Room.

Plans for the Autumn include taking Flock to Shanghai’s Pudong Century Square for the international arts festival in October. We’ll post more details here soon.

21 Mar 2007
Flock in motion

We have finally managed to throw together some of the footage we took from Flock’s premiere in Trafalgar Square. It’s still a little rough round the edges, but you should be able to get an idea of what it looked like…

You can also watch the video at YouTube or on Google Video.

26 Feb 2007
The Flock has dispersed…

It’s getting on for a month since Flock - our installation in Trafalgar Square - finally saw the light of day (if you can say that about a piece that requires darkness) and we still haven’t had time to collate much of a record of the event to post here. There are a few photos on Flickr taken by ourselves, and many more taken by others, but we hope to have edited some of the video footage together soon.

Thanks are overdue to the ICA and the Royal Opera House, the Mayor’s Office, Vivienne Gaskin, Ed Railton and XL Video.

You can read a little about the piece on The Evening Standard’s site and in this article in The Times.

12 Jan 2007
New Year

Flock, our new installation made in collaboration with Tom Sapsford, premieres in Trafalgar Square on Thursday 1st February.

Before that, despite its lengthening teeth, Dancing in the Streets returns to York (St Sampson’s Square) for three nights from Friday January 19th.

Other ongoing news; Our AHRC research project with the University of Leeds on projected light and performance is now well under way. We’ll post some pictures of work in progress very soon. Several new dance projects are in development. More news on these soon. The CGI work on The Christmas Miracle of Jonathan Toomey is nearly done. The film is due for release in time for Christmas 2007.