The Stage

Life on Mars

Published Monday 29 June 2009 at 14:30

The BFI’s Southbank Gallery has gone 3D, via a new, immersive video installation by British artists Iain Forsyth and Jane Pollard.

Radio Mania: An Abandoned Work is part film and part rehearsal, a contemporary adaptation of the 1922 silent film The Man from MARS - originally presented in stereoscopic ‘Teleview’ - captured using contemporary 3D video and audio technologies.

Forsyth and Pollard worked with Arup Acoustics in New York to create the multi-channel surround environment in the gallery’s adaptable, 190sq m space for soundtrack playback.

Their system designer/lead engineer, Ryan Biziorek, then worked with Sound Technology, the Harman Pro UK distributors, which provided 12 JBL Control 29AVs and a pair of SB210 subs, linked to the ambisonic platform. According to Biziorek: “The film was conceived to be in 3D from the beginning - the artists didn’t want a large, immersive 3D image with sound that didn’t complement it. A standard 5.1 system wasn’t a viable solution as the two screens are directly opposite one another and it doesn’t provide any elevation.”

Radio Mania: An Abandoned Work was filmed in a single take at Twickenham Film Studios, with a script by writer and novelist Kirk Lake. It runs until July 11.

Derek Smith