I am pleased to announce my participation in Conjuring Presence at Fenwick Gallery on the campus of George Mason University. I worked with Poet Vivick Narayanan on a piece we call Encounters. It uses poems we wrote, paired with Unreal Engine’s Metahumans and Replica Studio’s AI voice actors.
“Conjuring Presence” October 20-December 11 2021, online + in Fenwick GalleryView the full exhibit statement and details online: https://www.masonexhibitions.org/fenwick/conjuring-presence
Originally set to premiere in summer 2020…
LENS has been rescheduled for Saturday, September 18, 2021, as part of the Kennedy Center’s National Dance Day programming at The REACH.
LENS is a series of four movement-based installations each viewed through different technological means created/produced by Ben Levine in collaboration with over two dozen artists from the DMV and across the US. Featuring both live and digital performance, audience perspectives are reshaped with the use of night vision goggles (choreography by Shannon Quinn + Boris Willis), binoculars (choreography by Sadie Leigh), virtual reality headsets (slowdanger + Anna Henson), and a 360-degree projection installation (Orange Grove Dance).
Tickets will be available for reservation (free) beginning Friday, September 3rd on the Kennedy Center website. Currently Sold Out, standby may be available
When I was a kid I dreamed of being on the radio. I loved listening to Ken Nordine on NPR, the sometimes odd music programs and the old and not so old radio dramas. Now my dream has come true. In this interview I sing, recite a poem and talk with Sarah McConnell of With Good Reason about my work with games and performance. Check it out below.
I had a great time in Italy this summer visiting my partner’s family and seeing the beautiful countryside. It is was especially great to meet up with friends from here who were also either living in or visiting Capri and Puglia.
I’ve been working on getting a good setup for teaching. This has taken a while but I think I like what I have so far. The heart of the operation is the ATEM Mini Pro. It is a switcher that allows me to show different cameras or computers. I have a MacBook Pro which is used for Zoom and for my notes. My MSI Laptop is used to run Unreal Engine or other programs. I haven’t used the Xbox very much but It is a great platform for my laptop. I Keep both mouses on the right where I can also reach the switcher and the Rodecaster Pro. Audio comes in through the Rodecaster and it can play sound effects, connect additional audio sources, and even record. I have not recorded much so far. I did an interview recently but, I didn’t get to use the Rodecaster, oh well. There is a stand for my phone which is plugged into power. My monitor is on a stand with my GH5 camera on top, I use a Gorilla Pod to wrap the camera around the neck of the monitor stand. My Heil PR40 mic has a stand connected to the back and is plugged into the Rodecaster. I use a green screen behind me because I thought that I would use the box to put a game image behind me to look high-tech, but I have not worked that out. At some point, I need a better desk and a much better chair. I am ready for teaching, podcasts, and all kinds of fun audio production.
Joyful, hearing these amazing dance artists talk about community and the ways they find and create community. Organized by the talented Emmy award-winning producer Todd Clark. We were once again at the Arts Club of Washington, and in the Covid-19 era, this was the first time for me being with members of my dance community. We came together to talk, watch videos, and dance. It was an emotional and powerful experience. Speakers/presenters Assane Konte, Natty Mncube, Sarah Ewing, Elizabeth Johnson Levine, Shanna Lim.
Spent the weekend with Company E doing a Livestream. We did a taped version that I edited rather than an actual “live” stream. It was going to be quite simple to edit all of the pieces together, that is until the battery on my Mac stopped charging. Luckily I had a backup computer and was able to get the video edited and uploaded. Also, Jess Burgess at Dogtown Dance Theater is my hero. #companyedance #dogtowndancetheater #richmondva
Many years ago I took a class with the amazing Suzanne Carbonneau called Aesthetics Awareness. We did many unique and innovated things and one of them was to reimagine the last page of James Joyces’ Ulysses. Also, I have always been a big fan of Ken Nordine and his Word Jazz and spent many hours listening and mimicking his style and his content. For this assignment I combined Joyce, Nordine and the music of Lucia Hwong, Generic Actress #3 into this audio interpretation of the end of Ulysses. Happy Bloomsday!
Worked on a live stream at Busboys and Poets last Saturday with Todd Clark of Onanon Productions. We used the ATEM Mini pro and Steamyard to go their Facebook and YouTube. I didn’t know about StreamYard before this and now I wonder why so many people use OBS Studio over Steamyard. We had 2 GH5’s but I think a third camera from the opposite direction would have been better but then we would have needed a super long HDMI. The conversation between Nikole Hannah Jones, Michael Eric Dyson, Michel Martin, and Andy Shallal was riveting and so important to the idea of truth. We learned a lot and had a great time.
I was delighted to work as a media specialist for Revision Dance Company recently. I created a virtual production in Unreal Engine using dancers in front of a green screen. We decided against a live shoot since the green screen would have to live in the performance space so the dances were prerecorded. The virtual production was in a digital version of Dance Place, the premier venue for dance performance in DC. I also created an AR solo for each dancer, the process was, shoot with GH5, Premiere Pro, deepmotion.com, Autodesk Character Generator, MotionBuilder, Reality Converter, readyplayerme.com, WordPress, Google Chrome for QR codes. It was a fun time. I tried to use Adobe Aero and the AR was generally better as long as it was in their .real format. However, I wanted to have everyone use a QR code to display the media since it was a performance. There was no time to get everyone an Adobe account, login, download the app, and for a one-time thing, it was too much to ask of an audience. Adobe Aero also had issues converting to .usdz and would stall indefinitely or change the character materials to a bright yellow or a moving pixel shiny material. When it did work, it detached the eyes from the character which was creepy. Reality converter was not without issues, it didn’t create a proper texture map but it is in Beta so there is some forgiveness there.
