KMA

KMA is a collaboration between UK media artists Kit Monkman and Tom Wexler. Their work is primarily focussed on illuminating, encouraging, and developing, interactions between people in public spaces using projected light.

Uniquely in the history of creative urban lighting, KMA choose to prioritise the illumination of people and their relationships over the lighting of buildings and edifices. Rejecting the historical notion of the citizen as a passive spectator, KMA’s work celebrates the dynamics of human movement rather than the facets of historic buildings.

Kit and Tom have also collaborated with other prominent artists on a wide range of projects in theatre, tv, film and academia.

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KMA’s work creates large, immersive, sometimes networked, ‘digital playgrounds’, in which distinctions between audiences and performers disappear. The resulting social engagements reaffirm the urban community through embodied, rather than verbal, discourse.

These massive engagements in social play generate diverse audiences, free from social barriers. The participants take ownership of the work and the environment in which it is staged, creating a sense of event that in itself informs and illuminates the public space.

Whilst KMA’s work has dramatically transformed famous iconic spaces, such as London’s Trafalgar Square, it has proved equally successful in more intimate environments, for example the Rennaissance Courtyard of the Palazzo Spada in Terni, Umbria. Through a diverse range of commissions, including those from the Institute of Contemporary Art, the Royal Opera House, and the Dublin Docklands Development Authority, KMA’s work has consistently received extensive national and international press attention.

As a direct result of KMA’s unique experience within the public-performance realm, Kit and Tom have also collaborated with other prominent artists on a wide range of projects in theatre, film and academia. Recent work includes video art for DV8’s To Be Straight with You (currently touring), the opening sequence for The 2007 Bollywood Oscars, video design for Darshan Singh Bhuller’s Find Me Amongst the Black and his ground-breaking Eng-er-land, and ongoing performance research projects with the University of Leeds.

We don’t have a mailing list as such, but if you’d like to keep up to date with KMA’s work, please join our facebook group

Recent Work

Waves

February 2009

Waves is a newly commissioned kinetic light installation. Projected into the street with no visible infrastructure in sight, it uses the heat of passers-by to allow them to interact with a projected environment that simulates physical interactions whilst encouraging playful interactions. Waves was commissioned by DanceDigital as part of their launch as the leading agency for dance and technology in the UK.

You can read more about Waves, and watch video footage from the opening night, here.

To Be Straight With You (with DV8)

February 2009

To Be Straight with You is a poetic but unflinching exploration of tolerance, intolerance, religion and sexuality. It incorporates dance, text, documentary, film and animated projections to create a unique piece of theatre.

KMA worked closely with Lloyd Newson and the entire DV8 cast and crew throughout the show’s devising period. This resulted in a series of scenes in which the projected video and the performers’ movements are coordinated, generating some highly original and arresting theatrical imagery.

You can read more about the show, and read some press reactions here

Flock ‘08

July 2008

KMA created Flock in collaboration with Tom Sapsford (see above) in response to a 2007 commission from the ICA, with support from the Royal Opera House. This latest incarnation of their groundbreaking and hugely succesful interactive version of Swan Lake, performed and watched entirely by passing pedestrians, was a massive success in Liverpool this summer, forming part of the 08 City of Culture programme.

Further information about Flock can be found here.

The Hive

February 2008

KMA’s latest interactive light installation The Hive premiered in Grand Canal Square, Dublin, on February 1st 2008, and ran to great acclaim until February 9th. The piece was commissioned to celebrate the opening of Dublin’s new Science Gallery and was presented by the Dublin Docklands Development Authority in collaboration with the Science Gallery.

To a score by Philip Glass, over 5000 visitors engaged in encounters with otherworldly life forms and environments; at times, swarms of tiny insect-like creatures flew through the space and swarmed around the audience, weaving and flowing across the stage. Behind the scenes, computer models of swarms, cellular automata and fluid dynamics drove the projections, providing a link between the real world and this science-fiction fantasy.

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 opera which is driven by their movements and the changing rhythms and timbres of the music.

Further information about The Hive can be found here

Contact

For all general enquiries, please email us at contact (at) kma (dot) co (dot) uk

KMA's worldwide agent is Vivienne Gaskin

Vivienne Gaskin
VGCM Ltd
70 Keynsham Road
Cheltenham
GL53 7PX

+44 (0) 1242 530001
+44 (0) 7950 328112

vivienne@viviennegaskin.com

www.viviennegaskin.com